Category: I-phone

The Bard’s Tale was originally released on Microsoft’s first Xbox console, and it was a sort of a side-make of the original point-and-click RPG adventure game from the 80s (which itself is represented on the App Store by an app called Silversword, if you’d rather go even more old school than this one). But the Xbox title has just recently appeared on iOS, and it’s a respectable port of the title that makes fun of a lot of fantasy and RPG video game tropes.

The Bard’s Tale features amazing voice work (including by the late great Tony Jay) and the hack-and-slash action isn’t half bad. Fans of bawdy humor and wacky stories (there’s a zombie dance-off hidden in the plotline) will definitely get a kick out of it.

The app is Game Center-enabled and uses iCloud across a universal version, so you can trade saves between your iOS devices. Some iTunes users have reported a few bugs, unfortunately, but there are updates coming (driven by a few in-app purchases that are optional but definitely not required), so hopefully if you hit an issue, it should be fixed before long. To sweeten the pot even further, the app’s on sale this week, down to US$2.99. The Bard’s Tale is definitely worth a play through, especially if you missed it during the original run on the Xbox.

Daily iPad App: The Bard’s Tale originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Today, TUAW liveblogs Apple’s first quarter conference call. If you’d like to listen live, point your browser to Apple’s dedicated page. I’ll be doing live updates as they’re discussed, including coverage of the Q&A followup.

The liveblog appears in reverse chronological order, with newer updates higher on the page. This post will not auto-update, so keep refreshing your browser.

Also note that I do not usually cover the Financials. Our usual suspects are all on planes on their way out to Macworld/iWorld today. So please bear with me, as Apple spokespersons have a tendency to talk very, very fast on these calls.

Apple Q1 2012 results liveblog originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple has just posted its first quarter fiscal 2012 results. (There is a live conference call to follow). One of the biggest items to pop from the press release is the status of the iPod.

Unlike iPhones, iPads, and Macs, all of which experienced terrific gains, the 11-year-old iPod line experienced a 21% unit decline year-over-year, from last winter’s quarter.

Apple did not introduce a new iPod touch this Autumn, breaking a tradition of Fall iPod launches and refreshes.

Of course, the function of an iPod or iPod touch has been filled for many customers by the iPhone, which sold like gangbusters this quarter.

iPod line experiences major decline year-over-year originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple released its earnings statement and announced yet another banner quarter. Apple knocked it out of the park, with record quarterly revenue of US$46.33 billion compared to $27.64 billion in the year-ago quarter.

As predicted, iPhone sales were through the roof with 37.04 million units sold. This is up from the 17.07 million the company sold last quarter and up 128 percent from the 16.24 million it sold this quarter in 2010.

iPad sales were also up to another record-breaking level. The company sold 15.43 million iPads units, which is up from the 11.12 million iPads the company sold in Q4 2011. It’s also an 111 percent increase from the year-ago quarter when it sold 7.33 million units.

Mac sales remained strong. Apple sold 5.2 million Macs, which is up slightly from the 4.89 million it sold during the previous quarter. iPod sales continue their downward decline from 19.45 million in Q1 2011 to 15.4 million iPods this quarter, a 21 percent year over year decline.

Apple will livestream its conference call later today, and we’ll be liveblogging it as it happens.

Apple announces Q1 2012 earnings, sells a record-breaking 37 million iPhones originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Siri has been a big hit for Apple, but as we all know, it runs only on an iPhone 4S. I’ve been expecting some Siri knock-offs to appear, and now one has that can be used on any iPhone and even the iPad if you don’t mind not seeing it full screen.

The app is called Evi by True Knowledge. It’s US$0.99 and runs on any iDevice with iOS 4.0 or greater. “Run” is a bit of a misnomer. Evi’s speech recognition is powered by Nuance, just like Siri, and the recognition part is first rate. But that’s where the good news ends.

Evi has not successfully responded to a single spoken query I’ve made since yesterday afternoon. Generally the app sits there for awhile, then reports that it is “Thinking about it,” followed by “Let me see'” and then, inevitably, “I’m having trouble getting a response from my servers. You might want to try again in a minute.” Actually, I don’t ever want to try again. Ever.

Reviews at the app store are ugly, with the majority being negative and some are outright hostile. You would think an app maker would have some degree of preparation for what is sure to be a popular offering. I can understand some failures, even Siri fails on a semi-regular basis, but Siri was labelled beta when it came out. Evi is supposed to be ready to go.

This is an app that Apple should quickly pull, not because it competes with Siri (hardly), but because it is simply a complete and utter failure. In frustration I asked Evi if I can get my $0.99 back. Evi replied, “Bear with me” followed by “hang on,” “I’m on it” and finally the server failure warning. I guess that would be a “no.” Remember, you can’t spell ‘evil’ without Evi.

Check the gallery for some screen grabs of Evi not answering any of my questions.

Siri clone Evi is off to a very bad start originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Time Warner Cable released an official iOS app early last year that let subscribers watch live TV. Despite some early issues with channel agreements, the app is still going strong, and appears to be popular with customers. So popular, in fact, that the company has just updated the app to also work with the iPhone and iPod touch, so now no matter what iOS device you have, as long as you’re a TWC subscriber, you can tune in to some live television.

The app is called TWC TV, and it’s a free download on the App Store. As you might guess, it requires a good, reliable Internet signal, so you’ll need a Wi-Fi connection for streaming. You can also browse through program schedules and information, and even set your compatible DVR to grab your favorite shows.

The Time Warner app was a nice surprise when it appeared, and it’s one of the best things that old media companies have done to work with iOS. It’s good to see that it’s not only popular enough to support with an update, but that Time Warner is getting dedicated about making its content available even on Apple’s platforms for customers.

Time Warner Cable’s app goes universal originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Gartner announced today that Apple became the world’s biggest buyer of semiconductors in 2011, leaping ahead of both Samsung Electronics and Hewlett-Packard. As Macworld notes, PC and phone vendors’ semiconductor spending is related to sales of their finished products.

Apple’s spending on semiconductors was a whopping US$17.3 billion in 2011, up from $12.8 billion the year before. Samsung was in second place at $16.7 billion and saw a growth rate of about 9.2 percent due in part to its increasing sales of Android-based smartphones.

Not surprisingly, several manufacturers who are seeing the effects of Apple’s growth showed drops in semiconductor spending. The fragile PC market hit HP, which spent $16.6 billion during 2011, down from $17.6 billion in 2010.

Nokia saw an even more precipitous drop in their chip buying, dropping over 20 percent to about $9 billion. Gartner notes that the top ten semiconductor buyers spent about $105.6 billion in 2011 altogether, about 35 percent of worldwide chip revenue.

Apple now the world’s biggest buyer of semiconductors originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There’s been a lot of heat and fury surrounding the iBooks Author terms and conditions ever since the service was introduced last week. To boil the controversy down to basics, Apple has introduced a private protocol extension that takes EPUB to the next generation. And then they created a business model that uses this proprietary technology to monetize commercial transactions. This runs right in line with my predictions from earlier this month.

This decision, to build a proprietary format on an open standard, has led to a lively debate about whether a member of an open standards organization should be creating private standards like the .ibooks format or AirPlay. And, to be fair to Apple, to even realize that this proprietary format is based on an open standard, you actually have to crack open the files and expose the EPUB underpinnings. Apple wasn’t exactly announcing how they did things last week at the educational media event.

From a tech point of view, the .ibooks format itself is exciting stuff. It takes a major step forward, blending HTML 5 tech directly into ebooks and unifying books with the complete iWorks suite.

A few weeks ago, I wrote that “I believe that Apple should be leading a revolution in embedded live book elements with video, programmable app and web integration, and more (Think “Khan Academy” as books, for example). Why aren’t we seeing both the specs and the tools with Apple trailblazing forward?”

Today, that reality is here, with iBooks Author. I know several people who are already using the Khan Academy material. And because Apple moves the format forward so much from the open standard it was based upon, developers should have no issues with Apple making the updated version private.

If you thought Dashcode was an optional Xcode extra not worthy of notice, now’s a great time to reassess. At the risk of being hit with rotten vegetables, the “sweet solution” of 2007 has now come into its own: 1960’s? Plastic. 2010’s? HTML 5. With smart coding, you can embed entire applications into iBooks.

Scarily accomplished developer Steven Troughton-Smith recently managed to embed a playable version of his classic iOS app Lights Off inside an iBooks book using a Dashcode widget written with HTML 5. “This is the first time Dashboard widgets have worked on iOS,” he points out.

What’s more, he tells me that some developers have gotten the WebOS app framework (Enyo) and Cappucino to run inside their books. In terms of creative expression, this is a huge development with nearly limitless possibilities. Troughton-Smith said, “It will be absolutely epic for designers and developers making portfolios, or perhaps a book that reviews apps and contains mini versions, or whatever.”

So yes, Apple intends to control the sole paid delivery portal for this technology, freely offering the tool to create new .ibooks files, taking a 30% cut of all commercial material developed using this specification. At the same time, they’re the ones who are developing both the authoring tools and the distribution apps on their own nickel.

I don’t think I’m going out on a limb when I say that I believe that Apple is moving forward in a smart and well-calculated fashion. While Amazon’s KDP Select program created exclusivity due to legal agreements and shared profits, Apple is building its own kind of proprietary author cadre based on new and forward-looking technology.

Absolutely no one will be forced to use the new .ibooks format or the tools that create those files. If you wish to publish a non-exclusive EPUB on the iBooks store as well as on Amazon, Nook, etc, you are welcome to do so. Nor do I personally think that Apple will come after anyone who shares material between .ibooks editions and EPUB ones. I am, obviously not a lawyer, but I believe Apple is protecting and charging for use of its format, not aggressively seizing content.

On the whole, I have been deeply pleased with nearly everything I have discovered in iBooks — from its media support to its strong accessibility extensions.

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting ready to brush up on my Javascript skills. If you’re an app dev, you probably will want to as well.

iBooks Author owns your format, not your content originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’re a commuter with a taste for the spoken word, you’ll be pleased to hear that Audiobooks.com is introducing an all-you-can-eat service, including thousands of best-sellers. It’s like Spotify or Rdio for audio books.

Launching today, the new Audiobooks.com plan runs $24.95 per month, and can stream to nearly any internet-enabled mobile device.

A very nice thing about the service is that you don’t have to take out a book at a time. If a book grows boring, or you just want to listen to something different for a while, you can mark your place, and resume listening at the same spot at another time.

They write, “With Audiobooks.com, there are no storage constraints, no need to return audio books, no long-term contracts and no time constraints on audio book use. Audiobooks.com users can even mark their place in an audio book and resume listening at the same spot without using a browser plug-in or special application.”

TUAW asked Ian Small, the general manager, about their pricing strategy, running as it does somewhat higher than music-only services. He replied through a spokesperson that Audiobooks is trying to price their service close to popular market standard, with Audible.com setting that standard.

In the end, are you willing to add another monthly $25 bill to your costs? For some, it will be an invaluable service, for others a skippable luxury. What do you think? Let us know in the comments.

AudioBooks introduces all-you-can-eat book streaming originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Here’s an interesting stat: As compared to the global average, professionals in Africa are actually twice as likely to get offered an iPad by their employers. Forty-seven percent of respondents to IDG’s latest survey revealed that they own an iPad issued to them by their employer. The global average, according to the survey, is 24 percent. That sounds high to me, but then again it just means that IDG likely interviewed people already in corporations more likely to give out iPads.

It doesn’t mean the African number is entirely unfounded, however. It makes perfect sense that many employees working remotely in Africa (for example, outside big cities) would find good use for Apple’s iPads. In addition, 83 percent of respondents report using their iPads at work, while only 43 percent report using their iPad at home. That work number is much higher than the global average of 51 precent, and that home number is lower than the global average of 54 percent. IDG says the discrepancy is likely the consequence of spotty Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity on the African continent.

Keep in mind that the iPad could serve as a low-cost, powerful Internet-connected computer, which means that it’s used for plenty of reasons, not just because it’s supplied by an employer. IDG also notes that even globally, the iPad’s users remain extremely loyal to Apple: Only 17 percent of those surveyed said they would consider purchasing another non-Apple tablet in the future.

iPad has become a big factor in African business originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s hard to believe that 28 years have passed since the Macintosh was introduced by a young, bowtie-clad Steve Jobs, on January 24, 1984. It was Apple’s annual stockholder meeting and Jobs (and his Macintosh crew) were going to unveil the Macintosh to the public. It was a magic moment aptly described by Andy Hertzfeld on the Folklore website.

Even back then Steve was a showman, unveiling the Macintosh from underneath a bag. What audience member would believe that 23 years later, Jobs would pull out another Macintosh, the MacBook Air, from a manila envelope. It’s amazing when you look back and see how the Macintosh computer set the stage for much of what we have today.

When I watch the first Macintosh presentation, I see the the MacWrite and MacPaint apps as predecessors to iWork, iPhoto and iMovie. It’s not the apps themselves, but what you can do with a computer that Apple seemed to capture with that first Mac. Even the description of how the Mac team worked to exhaustion to get the applications ready just in time for the presentation reminds me of how startups today still operate.

When I see the scrolling text on the first Macintosh, I think of the iPad, sitting in a conference room, with a teleprompter app scrolling text across the screen. And when the first Macintosh talks to us, I can’t help but think of Siri. Yes, I know the underlying technology has changed, but the vision was there back in 1984.

Rather than continue to wax philosophically about the Macintosh, we’ll leave you to watch the video recording of the unveiling. It’s pure gold at the end to see the smile on Jobs’s face and the enthusiastic applause of the crowd. It makes you want to go back to that event and revisit a time when most technology was revolutionary. It also makes me thankful that companies like Apple are still willing to push the boundaries and keep this revolution going.

Happy 28th Birthday, Macintosh! originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you recently bought an iPhone 4S, chances are you sold an older model iPhone to fund that purchase. You also probably stayed on your current carrier and purchased the lower capacity models.

These trends are gleaned from a Consumer Intelligence Research Partners survey conducted in October, November and December of 2011. According to CIRP, 21 percent of iPhone 4S owners bought the 64 GB iPhone 4S, which means most 4S owners (79 percent) opted for the lower capacity.

CIRP also found that 36 percent of 4S owners migrated from another platform, which is up from the 18 percent reported in earlier surveys. This increase is impressive and shows the 4S is gaining traction among Android, BlackBerry or Palm users. It also shows that most customers (64 percent) stick with the iPhone once they make the switch.

It’s not just customers who benefit from the iPhone. The CIRP survey suggests the iPhone is good for carriers that carry the handset, bad for those that don’t. The results show that AT&T, Verizon and Sprint have maintained their iPhone user base and customers are not switching among the big three just to get the iPhone. New customers come at the expense of T-Mobile and other smaller carriers like US Cellular, which don’t carry the iPhone.

Though I wasn’t one of the 365 people who participated in the questionnaire, it describes me perfectly. I’m a 4S owner who sold my iPhone 4 on Craigslist. I stayed with my current carrier Verizon Wireless and purchased the lower capacity 16 GB model. How about you, do you fit into this survey?

Study shows iPhone 4S customers’ buying habits originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We all know just how obsessive Apple is about the little things. Scott Forstall, Apple’s VP of iOS software, has mentioned that he uses a photographer’s loupe to make sure that every pixel on the iOS interface is “just right.” Now an upcoming book opens the door on a secret room at Apple HQ where product packages are designed and tested.

The book, Adam Lishinsky’s Inside Apple, will be available in ebook and printed form tomorrow (January 25, 2012) and opens the kimono on the inner workings of the company. NetworkWorld had an early look at the book, and in one section Lishinsky described a packaging design room that is accessible to only a few people who have the proper security clearance.

Apple wants the user experience to start when the consumer first picks up a product box in a store. Lashinsky discusses how the room was once filled with hundreds of iPod box prototypes. The reason they had so many prototypes? Apple wanted to determine exactly which box evoked the proper emotional response in a customer when they unboxed the product.

In a quote from the book, Lashinsky notes that “One after another, the designer created and tested an endless series of arrows, colors, and tapes for a tiny tab designed to show the consumer where to pull back the invisible, full-bleed sticker adhered to the top of the clear iPod box. Getting it just right was this particular designer’s obsession … What’s more, it wasn’t just about one box. The tabs were placed so that when Apple’s factory packed multiple boxes for shipping to retail stores, there was a natural negative space between the boxes that protected and preserved the tab.”

Apple’s fixation on box design must work: I still have all of the boxes for my iOS devices and Macs. Most other product boxes end up in the recycle bin after a few days.

How Apple tests product packaging originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 24 Jan 2012 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Verizon may tout its 4G LTE network, but its quarterly earnings show that customers want the iPhone and are choosing the 3G phone over its 4G counterparts. It’s not just a small number either; about 55 percent of all smartphones sold in the quarter were iPhones.

The carrier announced that it sold 4.3 million iPhones during the final quarter of 2011. This figure accounts for more than half the 7.7 million smartphones the carrier sold and more than doubles the 1.6 million LTE smartphones the carrier sold in the last three months of the year. It’s also 2 million more than the 2.3 million 4G LTE devices the carrier sold (1.6 M smartphones and 700,000 LTE devices), which is impressive when you consider that it’s the iPhone 4 and 4S versus the 20 LTE devices in Verizon’s lineup.

In its aggressive ad campaign, Samsung may dangle its 4G smartphones in front of Apple fans like a carrot, but these quarterly figures show that customers are just not buying that message.

iPhone accounted for more than half of all smartphones sold by Verizon Wireless in Q4 2011 originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 24 Jan 2012 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A Dutch appeals court has dismissed Apple’s appeal to have the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 banned in the Netherlands on Tuesday. The move confirmed the Dutch lower court’s ruling from last year which stated that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 were not a copy of Apple’s popular iPad.

This legal back-and-forth between Apple and Samsung has been going on for a long time, and there’s no sign of either corporation backing down. At one point, Samsung even credited Apple with the Galaxy Tab’s popularity, billing it as “The tablet Apple tried to stop.”

Apple denied new appeal for Galaxy Tab 10.1 ban by Dutch court originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 24 Jan 2012 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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