Mint.com iPad app finally hits the App Store

The wait for Mint.com’s iPad app is finally over. Today Mint’s parent company Intuit unveiled its iPad app, and while many of us would have preferred to have it sooner it proves the old adage “good things come to those who wait.” Last week I got a exclusive sneak peek of the app and I can tell you that out of all the websites that have made the browser-to-iPad leap, Mint is the one that has done it most successfully.

Founded in 2006, Mint.com was one of the first fiscal information sites that acknowledged a simple fact: most people just want one easy-to-view dashboard to see all their financial accounts at a glance. Mint.com achieved this through aggregating checking, credit card, and loan accounts and presenting them to users in a beautiful UI. Mint was so successful in achieving its goals, personal financial software powerhouse Intuit bought the company in 2009.

Since the iPad launched, Mint users have been clamoring for for a native iPad app. While Mint.com is an excellent web-based service, the site is hard to use on the iPad since its high level of interactivity was designed for desktop web browsers rather than large touchscreens. With the release of the Mint iPad app today, the company has brought the full power of its service to the iPad.

As a whole, the iPad app offers more engaging ways to view your finances than the browser-based service ever could. Launch the Mint app and you’re presented with the Overview screen, composed of five modules that let you see your financial health at a glance. The charts module at the top of the screen shows you a quick overview of your finances using colorful graphs. These graphs allow you to easily see your spending overview, your spending over time, and your net income.

The mini feed module is a Twitter-like feed of your financial history, including alerts and financial advice. The budget module tracks your monthly spending. The top spending module shows you the top categories you spend in. Finally, the accounts module shows you all your accounts at a glance.

Tapping on any of the modules takes you to a more detailed screen breaking down your finances. For example, tapping on the Spending Overview graph in the charts module takes you to a new screen where that graph is fully interactive. On this screen you can scroll though the pie chart (much like you scroll an iPod’s click wheel) to really dig in to see where your spending is going.

When you’ve chosen a category in the interactive pie chart you can tap on the category to see all of its transactions and, even cooler, see all the details of that category laid out in an interactive pie chart. At the bottom of the individual category charts is the Time Navigator, which allows you to select a single month to view your spending in a specific category or select a range of months to see how you’ve been spending in that category.

A nice feature about the app is that is really takes advantage of using multitouch gestures to navigate within it. For example, when viewing an individual transaction you don’t need to tap a “back” button on a screen to return to the previous screen, you can simply swipe the current page out of the way to get back to it. It’s little features like this that making using the Mint app such a joy.

Other welcome features of the app include a search function that allows you to search transactions by merchant, categories, or tags; passcode lock with automatic wiping if the wrong passcode is entered too many times; every transaction can be edited right in the app; and users can enter manual transactions that let them track cash purchases on the go.

The manual transaction feature integrates with Google Places, allowing users to see a list of nearby merchants that they can then select as the place they spent their cash. Manual transactions will automatically be categorized based on the type of merchant selected and they are also mapped and geotagged. Speed is also something you see in the iPad app. Users who have been with Mint for four or five years probably have a large amount of transaction histories for their accounts, and the Mint app navigates transaction histories quickly without any lag.

When I interviewed Mint founder Aaron Patzer shortly after Apple unveiled the iPad, he told me that a Mint iPad app was something the company was planning on. So why did it take so long?

According to the Mint developers who gave me an advance preview of the app, they didn’t want to release a Mint iPad app just so they could say they had an iPad app. They wanted the Mint iPad app to have as high an impact as possible and they wanted to take the time to get it right, “putting the stress on quality” as one Mint engineer told me.

Mint “wanted something that really did justice to the device. We didn’t want to just port the iPhone app and just magnify everything. [We] wanted it to feel very immersive. The way people use the iPad is very different than the way they use the iPhone. People spend a lot more time on the iPad. The usage patterns are different. [We] wanted to really give people a mechanism [where] they could really dig deep into their finances.”

Given how well the app runs, it’s a bit surprising that Mint’s developers consider Mint for iPad as a “very 1.0” release; they are already planning to add more features to it, like additional trends charts (including Net Worth) and goals.

My take: Mint has done a better job translating the site to the app than almost anyone else who’s gone down this road, because their app captures the full functionality of the website without compromising any usability features. Indeed, because of its powerful interactivity and features I would say that the Mint for iPad app is even better than the Mint website at allowing users to view, track, and manage their personal finances. It’s that good.

Check out the gallery below to see what the app looks like and then download the free universal iOS app from the App Store.

Mint.com iPad app finally hits the App Store originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 26 Oct 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Aaron Sorkin reportedly considered to write Jobs biopic

You had to see this one coming a mile away after hearing that Sony Pictures obtained the rights to a film version of Steve Jobs’s biography. The LA Times reports that Aaron Sorkin, the writer behind the Mark Zuckerberg biopic The Social Network, is reportedly in consideration to write a screenplay based on Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs.

Sorkin’s screenplay for The Social Network won an Academy Award, so he seems an ideal candidate for a film version of Steve Jobs. He has a well-deserved reputation for writing smart dialogue coming from smart characters — if you’ve ever bellowed “You can’t HANDLE the truth” at one of your friends in a faux-Jack Nicholson drawl, thank Sorkin for his screenplay for A Few Good Men.

Condensing Steve Jobs’s entire life into a 2.5-hour film is going to be a monumental task no matter who tries to tackle it. Isaacson’s biography is richly detailed, and much of that detail is going to wind up on the cutting room floor when translated to film. After having read through Steve Jobs myself, I’ll be very interested to see which parts of it end up onscreen.

Aaron Sorkin reportedly considered to write Jobs biopic originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 26 Oct 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The US Apple Store is down (updated)

Apple’s online store has gone down. When the store goes down in the middle of the week it’s often an indication that new stuff is in the wings, but that’s not always the case. The recent MacBook Pro refresh snuck in completely under the radar, after all, and sometimes Apple takes the store offline for maintenance or minor tweaks.

Oddly enough, as of this writing it seems only the US Apple Store is down. All the international stores we’ve checked so far still seem to be up. One possible addition to the US store is sales availability for the unlocked iPhone 4S, although according to Apple that wasn’t supposed to happen until November.

We’ll keep an eye on things and let you know if anything new comes up. Things have been pretty quiet as far as Apple’s product pipeline goes, however, so we’re not expecting any surprises.

Update: The store is back up, but we don’t see anything new. Those hoping that unlocked iPhone 4S models would be available in the US will be disappointed; the store still shows availability “coming in November.” Some commenters have noted the Store maintenance might have something to do with activating iTunes Match services.

The US Apple Store is down (updated) originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 26 Oct 2011 03:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Review: Walter Isaacson’s ‘Steve Jobs’

I’ve just finished a marathon session of reading all the way through Steve Jobs on my iPad — and I’m sure Jobs would have appreciated the odd harmony of people reading his life story on a device he helped create.

After reading his biography, I’m no longer convinced that Steve Jobs would have liked me if we’d ever met in person. At least not at first. More likely, he’d have torn me a new one in our first meeting and told me that I sucked and everything I did was worthless. Then, in our second meeting, he’d have parroted my ideas back at me as though they were his own. It was apparently one of his signature moves, and it probably would have made me want to throw a chair at him.

But even if I had been provoked that far, he most likely would have just bellowed that I should have thrown a better chair.

Reading biographies is perhaps a different experience for me than it is for most people, since I spent most of my Master’s thesis examining the concept of truth in biographical works. Most of the memoirs, autobiographies, and biographies I’ve read have fallen into one of two categories. Either the text was something designed to lionize its subject and make him or her seem larger than life, or else the writer had taken pains to focus on only the parts of the subject’s life that fit into a clean narrative arc while leaving everything else on the cutting room floor, an approach that leads to easy and almost cinematic storytelling but leaves out much of the facts.

Neither approach to biographical writing strikes me as particularly true; in fact, almost every biography I’ve read seems to contain about as much actual truth as an episode of Star Trek. The tendency to over-praise or over-dramatize is both pernicious and pervasive throughout the various forms of biographical texts.

Walter Isaacson’s 656-page profile of Steve Jobs falls in neither category. It is quite possibly the truest biography I’ve ever read. In the process of telling the unvarnished truth about Steve Jobs, it dispels much of the myth and magic surrounding the man and his legacy. It does not depict Steve Jobs as the information age’s equivalent of Moses descending from Mount Sinai with an iPad in each hand. It would have been easy for some misinformed hack to portray Jobs that way in a quick cash-in “unauthorized” biography soon after Jobs’s death, but it also would have been closer to fiction than biography.

What Isaacson gives us instead is a portrait of a man with keen insight, brilliant powers of observation, and a stubborn determination to “put a dent in the universe.” However, the biography also depicts a man with deep flaws, some of which arguably contributed to his early death. It humanizes a man who’s spent much of the past decade as a living legend in multiple arenas, and it gives valuable insight into the person Steve Jobs was, not just the icon he became.

After reading his biography, I get the sense that no matter how brilliant Steve Jobs was or how many fundamental shifts in our landscape he spearheaded, in the end, he was as human as the rest of us. It’s a testament to Isaacson’s skill as a biographer that readers can at last obtain the picture of Steve Jobs as a human being rather than a legend.

Jobs’s reputation as a control freak was legendary, yet he relinquished all control over the contents of his biography. It’s a surprising move from a man who insisted on so much control over all of his life’s projects — the Mac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad were all born and thrived partially because Jobs refused to cede control over them. Jobs explained his motivations to Isaacson for his atypically hands-off approach to the biography. Partially it was because he wanted his children to know him better, flaws and all. It was also because he wanted to make sure that only someone possessed of all the facts about his life would write his story. “When I got sick, I realized other people would write about me if I died, and they wouldn’t know anything. They’d get it all wrong. So I wanted to make sure someone heard what I had to say.”

Jobs’s biography manages to allow him to get the last word in many debates. Many of the people who have toasted both him and his achievements will find themselves bearing the brunt of his last barbs against them. Some, like Jobs threatening to go “thermonuclear” on Android, have already been outed. Others are a bit more deeply buried within the text, but once found they’re both candid and a bit stunning.

“IBM was essentially Microsoft at its worst,” Jobs said, reminiscing about the early days of the personal computer revolution. “They were not a force for innovation; they were a force for evil. They were like AT&T or Microsoft or Google is.” My jaw dropped at this quote, but another later on in the book was more alarming. Immediately after heaping praise on his successor, Tim Cook, Steve said, “Tim’s not a product person, per se.” Considering that at many other points in the book Jobs heaped scorn on people like Bill Gates or John Sculley whom he also considered more concerned with profits than product quality, his unfiltered opinion of Cook’s product sensibilities definitely raised an eyebrow.

Much of the biography will be familiar to hardcore Apple enthusiasts. Chapters on the birth of the Macintosh will be familiar to anyone who’s read Andy Hertzfeld’s recollections at folklore.org, and if you’re a regular TUAW reader there won’t be too much in the chapters about the iPod, iPhone, or iPad that you haven’t already read. Older Apple fans will likely find the earliest chapters about the founding days of Apple not much more than a refresher course. But I suspect that few people will be able to read the entire book and not discover some surprising fact about Steve Jobs that they didn’t already know.

If you come into Steve Jobs already hating him, the biography gives you plenty of reasons to hold onto that opinion. If instead you view Jobs as a personal hero, there are plenty of episodes within his life story that might make you reconsider that opinion. Isaacson doesn’t shy away from describing Steve Jobs’s darker moments or personality deficiencies, some of which border on the downright despicable. To put it lightly, Steve Jobs was not a “people person.”

One of his ex-girlfriends read about Narcissistic Personality Disorder in the DSM and said, “It fits so well and explained so much of what we had struggled with, that I realized expecting him to be nicer or less self-centered was like expecting a blind man to see.” Even his closest friends, like Apple design guru Jonathan Ive, noted that Jobs often exhibited a vicious and unnecessary lack of empathy for those around him. The fact that so many people all over the world have been lauding him since his death, both friends and dogged competitors, speaks to the complex and paradoxical nature of Steve Jobs, a man whose greatest goal was to establish empathy between people and technology but who often displayed precious little empathy of his own.

Isaacson’s biography of Jobs isn’t a character assassination by any means (though I do wonder why the first third of the book dwells so often on Jobs’s body odor during the 1970s). That said, I still feel terrifically sorry for any employees who find themselves at the mercy of a supervisor who uses Steve Jobs as a managerial handbook, just like the legions of young would-be entrepreneurs trying to emulate the callous Mark Zuckerberg they saw in The Social Network.

If anyone comes away from reading Steve Jobs thinking that being a leader makes it okay to be an asshole, they’ll have missed about 99 percent of the point. Anyone can cut an employee to shreds or throw epic temper tantrums at the slightest provocation, but replicating Jobs’s intuition, perfectionism, dedication, and vision is arguably something that only one person in seven billion can manage to pull off.

Steve Jobs is at its core the study of the man himself, but along the way it’s also a fascinating history of the genesis, near-death, and resurgence of Apple. It also describes the birth, near-death, and ascendancy of Pixar, with fascinating details I’ve never read before. As the book follows Jobs through the personal computer revolution, the birth of the Macintosh, his “wilderness years” at NeXT and Pixar, and his return to Apple and subsequent paving over of the landscape for the music industry, cell phones, and tablet computing, Steve Jobs’s biography also offers incredibly detailed insights into how our world shifted from the hobbyist computing era of the mid-’70s to the ubiquitous techscape we live in today. Steve Jobs didn’t enact any of these revolutionary changes singlehandedly — his biography takes pains to make that clear — but he was most assuredly at or near the center of all of them.

Though the book makes his flaws obvious to readers, it also makes clear that we would be living in a very different world if Steve Jobs hadn’t set out to put a dent in the universe. Anyone with even a passing interest in Apple’s history, and anyone who’s ever wondered how so very much about the technology landscape has changed so fundamentally in just 35 years, owes it to themselves to read this book.

Review: Walter Isaacson’s ‘Steve Jobs’ originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 25 Oct 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Powder Monkeys offers challenging fun for young gamers

Powder Monkeys from XMG Studio (US$0.99, universal) is a big, varied game for the iPhone and iPad with enough going on to entertain kids and adults alike. Its good looks, many quests, game mechanics and upgrade opportunities increase longevity and keep players coming back for more. Plus, who wouldn’t want to help monkey pirates battle enormous bugs on the high seas? Here’s our look at Powder Monkeys.

Way back in the 17th century, a “powder monkey” was a member of a warship’s crew. It was his job to deliver bags of gunpowder to the gun crew, and keep the fight alive. XMG has had a bit of fun with the term, casting animated monkeys as its seafaring heroes, sworn to defend their turf against evil, enormous bugs. As the player, you must aide the monkeys by completing quests, surviving battles, upgrading your weapons and more. Before we get to that, let’s take a look at the game itself.

UI

Powder Monkeys features big, chunky “cartoonish” illustrations that look fantastic on the iPad as well as a less detailed overview of your character’s position on the sea. Other elements are easily identified, like treasure chests, islands of interest and enemy ships. There’s not a lot of reading to be done, either, which benefits younger players (both my 6-year-old and 8-year-old tested out Powder Monkeys for me).

Gallery: Powder Monkeys

Repair your shipSailing aroundSpin the wheel!Overhead viewChoose your character

As you sail around the environment, seeking adventure, a large ship’s wheel appears, though you only really need to drag to move. If you’re on a quest, an arrow points you in the right direction.

Other elements, like the store (for buying ammo, coins and upgrading equipment) repair shop and quest log are also attractive and legible, and a badge identifies the number of open quests you’ve got.

Finally, two badges in the lower right-hand corner of the screen monitor your inventory.

Gameplay

The real advantage here is the variation. This could easily have become a game of repetitive shooting, which gets old fast. Instead, XMG has included asset management, travel and some puzzle solving, which keeps the games interesting.

You begin by sailing into a cluster of islands and receiving a quest to visit one in particular. Of course, the bugs are waiting! Engage in your first battle.

Battle mode begins as two ships line up side-by-side. Each ship has four canons and various “bullets,” including watermelons, darts and, if you’re desperate, cutlery. Load a canon by tapping the type of ammo you’d like to load and then tapping the desired canon (bullets will destroy incoming bullets mid-air). A shot is fired and health decreased. The first player to run out of XP loses.

Fortunately, you’ve got powerups at your disposal. These special, upgradeable attacks will slow down the action, erect a defensive shield or increase your rate of attack, among other things. They’re all handy when your enemy’s vessel is superior to your own. If you win, a barrage of coins appear. Pick them up with a tap.

Pick up additional quests by traveling from island to island. One required me to navigate a maze filled with superior ships. Another had me escort a companion across dangerous seas. Again, the variation keeps it interesting.

Other elements

Gather coins by winning battles and completing quests. You’ll also need wood, iron and special Banana Coins. These can be obtained by completing quests, opening treasure boxes (found floating in the sea) or spinning the wheel! Some treasure boxes contain goodies, while others offer a Wheel-Of-Fortune type spinner, lined with various assets. Tap anywhere to stop the spinner and see what you’ve won.

Coins are used to buy additional ammo, powerups and upgrades via the “store.” Additionally, changes to your ship’s hull, canons, rigging and armor also require wood and iron.

The all-important Banana Coins can be found in the game or purchased with real money via an in-app purchase. My 6-year-old was tempted to put dad’s hard-earned cash down on a pretend coin, but I put the kibosh on that (big meanine). Plus, the app required my Apple ID (as you’d expect) which he does not have.

Conclusion

My only complaint is with the overhead map. You can zoom out at anytime to get an overview of your location, but must zoom back in to move. This probably defeats the sense of adventure, but I’d like to be able to move while in the distant, overhead view. Plus, the tiny island icons are tiny indeed on the iPhone.

Other than that, Powder Monkeys is a winner. It feels much deeper than you’d expect from a 0.99 app, with all the questing and upgrade options. Game Center achievements are also supported. It’s just as comfortable on both devices and just plain fun. Plus, I dare you to get that Caribbean theme song out of your head.

Powder Monkeys offers challenging fun for young gamers originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 25 Oct 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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5 apps for Diwali

TUAW wishes its Hindu readers – Diwali ki hardik shubhkamnaye. This holiday rejoices in the Inner Light and the underlying reality of all things. In its spirit as the festival of lights, we offer you a special edition of “5 apps for…”. Here are an assortment of iOS applications to help celebrate Diwali.

  • Interact with a Diwali diya (free) on your iOS device using swipes and puffs of air. The app provides musical background songs and various styles of ceremonial diya lamps.
  • The $0.99 Diwali Greetings lets you create and share e-mail holiday cards with friends and family
  • Desi Calendar (free) provides a yearly calendar with festival dates and listings for each month full moon (purnima) and new moon (amavasya).
  • Create traditional Diwali sweets ($2.99) using this iOS recipe collection.
  • Celebrate with Diwali Firecrackers ($0.99) with “5 firecrackers and 25 engaging levels” by illuminating the earth with bursting firecrackers.

TUAW reader Sunilkumar K. Meena tells us, Diwali is the festival of Laxmi, the Goddess of prosperity and wealth. It is believed that Goddess Laxmi visit everyone during Diwali and brings peace and prosperity to all

TUAW reader Raghav Sethi adds that Deepavali (Diwali) is a festival where people from all age groups participate. They light earthen ‘diyas’ (lamps), decorate the houses, light firecrackers and invite family and friends to feasts. Lighting lamps is a way of praying for health, wealth, knowledge, peace, valor and fame.

Shubh Deepavali!

Thank you Raghav Sethi and Sunilkumar K. Meena

5 apps for Diwali originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 25 Oct 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Daily Update for October 25, 2011

It’s the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You’ll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what’s happening in the Apple world.

You can listen to today’s Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here.

No Flash? Click here to listen.

Daily Update for October 25, 2011 originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 25 Oct 2011 16:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Gameloft starts trading shares in the US

Gameloft is one of the standout companies on iOS. While the company has received criticism for “borrowing” some gameplay themes and ideas from more popular console titles, there’s no question that it has still worked hard on quality games, and picked up a lot of iOS sales for it.

Gameloft is based in France, but has announced that it will start trading on the US market by selling American Depositary Receipts, which are a kind of representation of a foreign stock on the American market. The company says that 30% of its sales come from North America, so bringing the chance to invest to the US is probably a good way to pull in some new assets and interest.

Not to mention that the offering brings investors a chance to catch a ride on one of the iOS’ platforms biggest success stories. Gameloft has been doing really well on the App Store, and this is just another sign that it’s headed for even better things in the future.

As always, please note that this post is not actual financial advice. Just because the company is doing well, past performance is never a guarantee of future success in any business.

Gameloft starts trading shares in the US originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 25 Oct 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Daily Mac App: App Tamer

App Tamer application manager

Last week we covered BatterySqueezer, an app designed to throttle browser processes when backgrounded. Today we’ll take a look at App Tamer, a similar non-Mac App Store app that takes things further.

App Tamer goes beyond throttling and will actually put applications into suspended animation. It also will tackle any program that you wish, not just limited to browsers. By default it will pause resource-heavy apps such as Photoshop and Chrome when not in use, saving all but a tiny percentage of their CPU usage.

Configuration options include the ability to put a shadow mask over paused programs, helping to identify them as suspended. You also can define the period of activity before App Tamer does its thing. App Tamer will wake the paused app with user-configurable time periods, which by default is every 5 minutes. This helps prevent the app from crashing out.

When you switch back to a paused application, App Tamer resuscitates the program with almost instant results — there didn’t seem much in the way of perceivable lag in my testing on a 2011 MacBook Pro. Everything then runs normally until you click away, putting the app back into suspended animation.

In my rather unscientific testing, App Tamer more or less killed all CPU demands of paused applications. This led to much more free resources without the need to kill the apps when not in use. Your milage, as they say, will vary — but a free trial is available, so you can see whether it’s going to do what you need without commitment.

So, if you’re looking for something that goes beyond just browser throttling — App Tamer will set you back $15 and should help you reclaim CPU-cycles, reduce heat and increase your multi-tasking battery life.

Hat tip to Mystakill

Daily Mac App: App Tamer originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 25 Oct 2011 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Macworld Expo rebranding as Macworld | iWorld for 2012

In line with the ever-expanding impact of iOS devices and mobile technology on the userbase-formerly-known-as-the-Macintosh-market, the premiere tradeshow for all things Apple will have a new name in 2012. The 27-year-old Macworld Expo event will now be known as Macworld|iWorld: The Ultimate iFanEvent. The branding change acknowledges the reality that iOS is a huge and growing part of the Apple product ecosystem; registration for the January show/conference is open now.

Paul Kent, IDG’s maven for all things Macworld Expo — sorry, Macworld|iWorld — discussed the branding change with the expo’s corporate cousins at Macworld magazine. “We want a heavy influence of OS X developers on the show floor this year,” Kent said, but the show will be balancing the iOS impact as well as moving outward to re-emphasize the cultural connections to Apple products.

Music will play a major role this year, with showcase performances at the Music Experience and expanded evening events outside the core Moscone venue. Film and other creative pursuits will take their turn on center stage as well. IDG is projecting about a 20% growth in total exhibitor count, which is a healthy step up from last year; the 2010 and 2011 shows represented a major downscaling from 2009, which was the last time Apple exhibited at the show.

TUAW has been pleased to participate in Macworld Expo over the years, including our live video streaming interviews in 2010 and 2011. We don’t know yet if we’ll be back with a booth on the show floor for 2012 at MW|iW, but we’ll certainly have some sort of presence — and we look forward to seeing you there.

[Any similarity to the name of Apple’s short-lived online service, eWorld, is almost certainly unintentional.]

Macworld Expo rebranding as Macworld | iWorld for 2012 originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 25 Oct 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple, Oreo and Capri Sun top list of popular youth brands

Harris Interactive put together a survey asking American youth from ages 8-24 what their favorite brands were, and Apple came out on top in the computer, tablet, and phone space. That’s not too surprising, given how powerful Apple’s marketing is (not to mention how great its products are), but it is true that “the old” Apple tended to go for the slightly older audiences. Since the introduction of the iPod ten years ago, Apple’s marketing and products have skewed younger and younger.

What’s perhaps even more interesting in this report is the other brands that are popular with this age group: Oreos! Capri Sun! Nintendo? These kids are into the same things I liked as a kid! Oreos and Capri Sun especially — I believed those lunchbag standbys were old school, but apparently they’re still popular on the contemporary playground. Next you’ll tell us that kids today still dig Trapper Keepers and Ecto Cooler!

Apple, Oreo and Capri Sun top list of popular youth brands originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 25 Oct 2011 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iOS 5 Safari speed gains demonstrated in New Relic infographic

Web application performance company New Relic released the results of a study comparing the mobile browsing speeds of iOS 4 and iOS 5 on the same model of iPhone. What did they find? That iOS 5 / Safari 5.1 is much faster than iOS 4 / Safari 5.0.

New Relic complied their test results into the nifty infographic seen below. I love their conclusion: “Time to upgrade!” What has been your personal experience with web browsing or web app response times under iOS 5 and Safari 5.1? Leave your comments below.

iOS 5 Safari speed gains demonstrated in New Relic infographic originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 25 Oct 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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China Mobile claims 10 million iPhone users

China Mobile Chairman Wang Jianzhou told Reuters that its wireless network is home to over ten million iPhones. This number is a very small part of China Mobile’s 600 million subscribers, but it’s surprisingly high for a carrier that does not currently sell any model of the iPhone. These iPhones on China Mobile are either purchased directly from China’s five Apple stores, converts from China Unicom which does carry the iPhone 4 or are iPhones obtained on the black market. It’s well known that many iPhones being sold in China are smuggled in from foreign countries and sold to customers in open air markets.

This illicit market may face some competition as China Mobile hopes to carry the iPhone when Apple manufacturers a version compatible with the carrier’s TD-LTE standard for 4G. According to Wang, China Mobile does not have a contract with Apple, but Apple has supposedly promised to support TD-LTE when it develops an LTE-enabled iPhone handset. Steve Jobs and Tim Cook have reportedly visited with China Mobile executives to discuss this technology and a possible carrier agreement.

China Mobile is the world’s largest wireless carrier and an official agreement would vastly increase the number of potential iPhone owners. Though China Mobile has publicly said several times that it wants the iPhone in an offical capacity, Wang isn’t upset by the number of unauthorized iPhones on China Mobile’s network. Wang said, “The total number of iPhones in China Mobile’s network has reached 10 million — and we didn’t pay any subsidies.” That’s a nice hidden benefit.

China Mobile claims 10 million iPhone users originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 25 Oct 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Bluetooth Smart announced, iPhone 4S is ready

Lost in the hype about Siri is the fact that the iPhone 4S is the first available smartphone to support the Bluetooth 4.0 standard. Announced in early 2010, Bluetooth 4.0 focuses on low-energy, sensor-filled devices that can be powered by button cell batteries. Examples include pedometers, heart rate monitors, glucose meters, and home automation tools.

Now that the first Bluetooth 4.0 ready handset has hit the market, the Bluetooth SIG group has created a new logo and name to describe these low-power devices. Starting soon, any device with a Bluetooth 4.0 compatible radio will be branded with the name Bluetooth Smart or Bluetooth Smart Ready. A new Bluetooth logo will be emblazoned on packaging to help customers locate this category of Bluetooth products.

The iPhone 4S may be the first Bluetooth Smart compatible smartphone, but it’s not the first Bluetooth 4.0 hardware available from Apple. The Cupertino company also added Bluetooth 4.0 support to the latest Mac Mini and MacBook Air models. These Apple products will be ready to connect to Bluetooth Smart devices once they begin to hit the market in the upcoming months.

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Bluetooth SIG Extends Bluetooth Brand, Introduces Bluetooth Smart Marks

Market and Use Case Expansion Create Need to Denote Compatible Bluetooth v4.0 Devices

KIRKLAND, WA – Oct. 24, 2011 – The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) announced two new brand extensions to its globally recognized logo today in an effort to create consumer awareness around compatibility for new devices implementing Bluetooth v4.0 – the Bluetooth Smart Ready trademark and the Bluetooth Smart trademark. Bluetooth Smart Ready devices are phones, tablets, PCs and TVs that sit at the center of a consumer’s connected world and implement a Bluetooth v4.0 dual mode radio. Bluetooth Smart devices are sensor-type devices like heart-rate monitors or pedometers that run on button-cell batteries and were built to collect a specific piece of information. Bluetooth Smart devices include only a single-mode low energy Bluetooth v4.0 radio.

Bluetooth Smart Ready devices can connect to the billions of Bluetooth devices already in use today and also to new Bluetooth Smart devices just starting to enter the market. Bluetooth Smart devices, due to their revolutionary low power consumption, will only connect with products denoted with the Bluetooth Smart Ready mark, plus those designated specifically by product manufacturers.

“Here’s the truth of the matter: Bluetooth Smart and Bluetooth Smart Ready devices will revolutionize the way we collect, share and use information,” said Michael Foley, Ph.D., executive director of the Bluetooth SIG. “In order to ensure consumers know what these extraordinary devices have to offer, we created the Bluetooth Smart and Bluetooth Smart Ready marks. These new logos will help consumers manage compatibility, and encourage manufacturers to build their best Bluetooth devices yet.”

A recent In-Stat report forecasts Bluetooth device shipments will exceed two billion in 2013 alone, fueled largely by the rapid introduction of Bluetooth Smart devices across many different industry segments.

“Consumers can look at new Bluetooth Smart Ready devices the same way they would a 3D ready TV – having the TV is just the first part of the puzzle, you need glasses and content in order to really experience 3D,” said Suke Jawanda, CMO of the Bluetooth SIG. “Once consumers have a Bluetooth Smart Ready device, like the new iPhone 4S, they can continue connecting to existing Bluetooth devices and are also ready to experience the new world of Bluetooth Smart peripheral devices that will carry the Bluetooth Smart logo.”

Bluetooth Smart announced, iPhone 4S is ready originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 25 Oct 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iPod designer Tony Fadell takes on thermostats with Nest Labs

Tony Fadell, Apple’s former Senior Vice President of the iPod Division, oversaw iPod and iPhone development between 2001 and 2009. Ten years after his most iconic project first saw the light of day, the “father of the iPod” has a new product: Nest, a home thermostat that’s smarter than the average bear.

Nest is a new breed of home thermostat that Fadell has developed with partner Matt Rogers, who led an engineering team at Apple’s iPod division in 2009. Mike Matas, formerly of Delicious Monster and Apple, contributed to the design.

“It’s a thermostat for the iPhone generation,” says Fadell. Aside from its striking looks and color-coded, digital display, the Nest thermostat boasts impressive features. For example, a motion sensor notices if there are people in a room and adjusts its temperature accordingly. It also learns your habits and preferences, so there’s no programming to be done.

Even fine-tuned adjustments of just a few degrees can make a big difference for consumers and the environment. The New York Times notes that each degree cooler (in winter) or warmer (in summer) a house is kept translates into a 5 percent energy savings, according to experts. John E. Bowers, director of the Institute for Energy Efficiency at the University of California, Santa Barbara, likes the idea of using an smart device to monitor those adjustments. “There is a huge amount that can be gained in homes, and an intelligent thermostat could be a great opportunity,” he told the Times.

The Nest will ship sometime in November at US$250, via the company’s site and Best Buy’s website. It certainly looks cool, but what would you expect from “the father of the iPod?”

iPod designer Tony Fadell takes on thermostats with Nest Labs originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 25 Oct 2011 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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