Remix & WIN with Olivia Broadfield, Propellerhead, SoundCloud and TUAW

Calling all producers, mixers and music-making enthusiasts. We’ve teamed up with UK singer-songwriter Olivia Broadfield (who we recently interviewed here), Propellerhead and SoundCloud to offer you the chance to win Propellerhead’s brand new Balance audio interface, a copy of their latest DAW, Reason 6, a SoundCloud premium membership and a singed copy of Olivia’s latest album, “This Beautiful War”, and some TUAW merchandise, too!

In order to be in the running for this fantastic prize, you’re required to remix (the best way you see fit) Olivia’s song, “Say” off her album, “This Beautiful War” (we’ll provide you with the audio stems). The competition closes and entries must be in by the end of January 31st, 2012. Entries will be judged by Olivia and TUAW, with the winning remix announced in February, 2012.

To enter, simply email [email protected] and she’ll provide you with all the info and links to get started. That’s it. Let the remixing begin. Any questions? Let us know in the comments below.

Remix & WIN with Olivia Broadfield, Propellerhead, SoundCloud and TUAW originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 23 Dec 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple offers Boxing Week, other sales

Boxing Day is celebrated in the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and Apple has taken advantage of this holiday by launching Boxing Week.

iPodNN says that Canada is the only country participating to date, with albums discounted to $6 to $8. In the U.S., there also is a sale going on with this year’s chart toppers with albums dropped to $7.99, and most regions have a Beatles sale going on with the band’s studio albums dropped to $9.99. They’re a great way to maximize any iTunes gift card received during the holiday season.

Apple offers Boxing Week, other sales originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 23 Dec 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ho to fix iPhone 3GS 5.0.1 Untethered Jailbreak

Few days ago, the iPhone Dev-Team has released Redsn0w 0.9.9b9 and Ultrasn0w 1.2.5, both comes with major upgrades with full support to the latest iOS 5.0.1 firmware. However, there was a bug in the Redsn0w 0.9.9b9 version reported to the Dev-Team by number of iPhone 3GS owners with old bootrom.

Fortunately, the issue related with the iPhone 3GS untethered jailbreak on 5.0.1 firmware has been noticed, the iPhone Dev-Team has just pushed out the fix in an update with Redsn0w 0.9.9b9d for Windows and Mac both. Notably, only iPhone 3GS users with old bootrom can perform untethered jailbreak on iOS 5.0.1 firmware using Redsn0w jailbreak tool.

Download Redsn0w 0.9.9b9d for Windows
Download Redsn0w 0.9.9b9d for Mac OS X

via Xiphone

Selena Gomez talks tech with TUAW

Before 2011, you probably only knew who Selena Gomez was if you had teenagers or younger children. But this year the young woman who plays Alex on Disney’s Emmy Award-winning Wizards of Waverly Place has made her way into the mainstream spotlight.

In the last twelve months she’s starred in her second feature film, been hounded endlessly by paparazzi because she’s dating one of music’s biggest stars, was active in her role as a UNICEF ambassador, released (with her band) her third studio album while touring around the globe with them, and hosted the EMAs. And almost as if she’s trying to squeeze everything possible into this year, she’ll be working until the stroke of midnight on December 31st in New York where she’ll be performing at MTV’s live New Year’s Eve special.

All that would be a lot for anyone, yet there’s still one more thing that Selena has done this year. This past November the 19-year-old pop star from Texas also became a tech venture capitalist. Along with CrossCut Ventures and a group of ten other seasoned investors, she took part in a first round of funding for the iPhone and Android app Postcard on the Run. The app, which I reviewed a few days ago, lets users turn any digital image on their iPhone into a physical postcard that can be instantly sent to anyone in the world.

I’ve recently been finishing up a book on the cult of celebrity in America (and for research, reading way too much Daily Mail trash than could possibly be considered healthy), so when I saw Selena Gomez’s name pop up on one of my tech news feeds and not my celebrity news feeds I was taken aback. The November announcement said that Selena had become an investor in an iPhone app. But for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why a nineteen year old who has so much other stuff going for her right now felt the need to do something so — well, compared to all she’s done — so relatively small; not to mention something most others in the tech industry don’t do until their late 20s or early 30s.

Don’t get me wrong, Postcard on the Run is a very good app. It’s actually one of my favorites. But that’s all it is — a single app. And if you’re doing it for the money, why not invest in a bigger app, or a developer who has lots of apps? I mean, Ashton Kutcher I get. He’s another celebrity who is a heavy tech VC. But his strategy is fairly obvious. Lots of investments. Big portfolio. Big profits. But a single app with a first time developer? And at 19?

So I contacted Selena’s people and she agreed to an interview with me early last week. What I found out was something all of us reading this are familiar with. It’s why some of us are developers and all of us are users. You get into it because you love the product. Because you can’t stop talking about it and you want to be part of it — any way you can.

And that’s exactly what happened to Selena. In September she was stuck on her tour bus between performances and she came across Postcard on the Run in the App Store and started sending postcards with it. “I have my iPhone with my all the time that’s why I think Postcard on the Run is such a great concept. The one thing people have with them at all times is their phone and the app makes it so easy to send cards and keep in touch with people in a more personal way,” she tells me. “I got excited about something and wanted to be a part of it.”

At first I think “what’s wrong with email?” but then, perhaps channeling a bit of my mother, I do have to admit a physical note is more personal than an electronic one. I ask Selena if she thinks there’s room for both traditional and electronic greetings in the future? Does one mean more to her than another?

“I really think it can be a combination of both,” she says. “There’s something really nice and special about sending and receiving mail the old fashioned way. Who doesn’t like getting things in the mail?”

A Twitter fan base of 9 million. Check. 25 million “Likes” on Facebook. Check. Likes to wait for something in the mail? Uh, check. Who knew?

After deciding she wanted to get involved it was time to contact the app’s creator, Josh Brooks. I ask her if Josh thought someone was playing a prank on him at first. I mean, if I got an email from “Selena Gomez” saying she wanted to help any way she could on my next book project, I wouldn’t take it too seriously.

She laughs at my question, but shrugs off the suggestion. “I actually talked to my stepdad about it and he and I reached out to Josh directly,” she says. “But yeah, Josh was pretty excited.”

For his part, Josh tells me that he didn’t disbelieve the email, but he did admit to using Google for what it does best. “And so I checked it out and everything made sense. It was way interesting and we had a couple more emails and then hopped on the phone.”

When asked how long it took from that first email to the time she officially came on board Selena says, “Not very long at all. I guess it took three or four weeks.”

But the timing turned out to be serendipitous. Before Selena contacted Josh, he already had a number of angel investors along with CrossCut Ventures committed, and they were looking to finish up the financing so he could take the app further. Though Selena nor Josh are releasing individual investment numbers, the closing round that Selena invested in was $750,000.

I asked Selena why so many celebrities seem to be getting into tech investing. From an app developer’s standpoint, it’s good press. But besides financial incentive, is there any other reason for the celebrity to do it?

“I can’t speak for others but for me, having grown up in the ‘digital age’ it feels like a natural,” she says. “I’m always on the go, and the one thing always with me is my phone and I’m excited about being part of a technology that helps people stay in touch in a real way. Postcard on the Run’s technology has the added benefit of working in conjunction with projects or initiatives I’m working on directly.”

As she tells me about the features of the app, you can tell her love for Postcard on the Run is clear. “I genuinely like Postcard’s approach to the online/offline space. It’s super simple – that’s key.”

Like anyone else, I understand liking a product and wanting to get involved, but I ask Selena what an actress and singer could bring to an iPhone app? Especially one that had it’s territory invaded by Apple and its Cards app. I mean, she’s already conquered television, movies, and music. Did she really feel like she needed another challenge?

But this is where she gets back to that something no one can argue with: “I don’t think it’s as much about taking on Cupertino, but creating a product that people will use, love and share.”

In other words, worry about the product, not the competition.

As for what she can contribute, Selena doesn’t pretend to be a Silicon Valley wiz or tech titan. She openly admits that — at least in the app world — she’s still a fresh face. “This world is somewhat new to me, but Josh and I have a really comfortable relationship. We’re constantly in touch regarding everything from product updates to looking at new ways to incorporate Postcard on the Run into other projects and campaigns. More than anything, at least for now, our main goal is build the profile of the company.”

And with star power like Selena’s, building the profile of the company shouldn’t be much of a problem. I ask her how her name recognition has affected download numbers, to which she modestly replies, “There’s been a jump.”

When I asked others who know Selena what she is really like I got answers of “great person,” “super sweet,” “family oriented,” and “She’s one of the most warm individuals at her level that I’ve ever met.” Add “humble” to that list too.

So I ask Josh how much Selena’s involvement has helped.

“Selena’s strength is not only her ability to reach a younger audience, but it’s also to speak to just a different culture that is so digitally friendly. I almost look at her as an ambassador to Postcard on the Run as she can help carry our voice to a different audience,” he tells me. “When she makes an announcement about Postcard on the Run you see [download] spikes that are ridiculous. It’s out of control. It’s tens of thousands of downloads as a result of her supporting or pushing out something cool that’s happening with Postcard on the Run. People really want to engage with her and she has fun doing it.”

There’s the boastfulness I was looking for. But Josh, who has a deep history in the talent and music industry, is also earnest in his reply about Selena’s role as a creative advisor as well. “If you’re between the age of 16 and 22 your skill sets are just different than ours. She personifies this really interesting, multi-thread of a talent like no other. She’s extremely real and genuine about how she sees this stuff working.”

For now, Selena is happy working to help make Postcard on the Run a success and told me she has no other plans for any other app investments at the moment. She’ll be busy performing and promoting well into 2012. However, if you’re hoping to get her attention with your app she did tell me generally likes word games and photo apps. Just make sure those apps are built out of a passion and not solely for profits.

Note: Love Selena? Love postcards? Check back the Monday after Christmas for a sweet promotion and giveaway from Selena, Postcard on the Run, and TUAW!

Selena Gomez talks tech with TUAW originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 23 Dec 2011 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Daily iPhone App: Grabatron

For those of you who enjoy Future Games of London’s Hungry Shark series, you might want to check out its new game: Grabatron (US$0.99 for the iPhone version, $2.99 on the iPad). Designed as a homage to 1950’s monster and alien invasion movies, you play as a UFO which uses a claw to abduct farm animals and people or use huge objects like cars as battering rams.

Like in the Hungry Shark games, you control the UFO by using the iPhone’s built-in gyroscope. Tilt to the right or left to go in that direction. The UFO hovers over wide and varied landscapes, like army bases, farms and even 1950’s Las Vegas, so there’s plenty of changing scenery to keep things fresh. You can also explore subterranean caverns, some filled by scientists you can terrorize, while others hold power-ups, like stronger spaceship armor or a more powerful claw.

While the game is fun to play, it can get a bit repetitive. You can only hurl a person to their doom with a giant claw before you want more to do. Fortunately, there’s a lot to explore and 30 separate missions to keep you engaged.

My only beef with the game is that there are separate version of iPhone and iPad. I like my apps universal, and those who feel that they shouldn’t have to buy the same game twice will be disappointed. However, for its fun, playability, and overall design, I recommend Grabatron to any casual iOS gamer.

Daily iPhone App: Grabatron originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 23 Dec 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dear Aunt TUAW: Where’s the OnLive App?

Dear Aunt TUAW,

More of a question rather than a tip, but with the App Store lockdown today, I presume OnLive’s Player App will not be live in time for Christmas.

I was thinking: Do you think Apple delayed approval of the app to maximize profits by sales over Christmas, including the significant revenue likely generated by the release of Grand Theft Auto 3?

Your skeptical nephew,

Chris

Dear Chris,

Hey bud! It’s your cousin Mike — Auntie asked me to field this one, since I recently had a chance to play with the very impressive OnLive app in question. You’re right: We heard great things about the app and its accompanying controller a few weeks ago (and I promise they’re real, since I’ve still got the app installed and working on my personal iPad), but since then we haven’t heard anything from OnLive, and the promised software has failed to materialize.

That only applies to iOS, for the moment; we’re told the app is available on the Android store right now, so if you have an Android tablet, you can play with it there. But most of us TUAW folks don’t bother with Android, so when is it coming to iOS?

I asked OnLive, and they tell me that both the iOS release of the app and the controller are still pending. The app specifically, an OnLive rep tells us, “in the approval process with Apple.” The rep couldn’t provide any further information, and it’s possible that even OnLive doesn’t know what the holdup is. Apple’s approval process can be pretty secretive, even for the developers in it.

There’s possibly a few things happening here. First, OnLive might just honestly be waiting on approval — it’s too bad they didn’t clear the process before the big announcement, but them’s the breaks, and maybe they are just waiting on a release. Second, Apple could have denied the app for some reason, and it’s possible that OnLive is working to fix or resubmit the app in order to get Apple’s approval. I’ve used the app, and I can’t think of any reason technically that the app wouldn’t be accepted, but maybe there was something.

Third, as you say, there could be something a little sneakier going on here. OnLive’s service is paid for by selling access to PC games running on their own servers, and the way they have it set up, you can’t buy those games through the app (you need to buy them from a regular PC before playing them on the iOS app). That means that Apple doesn’t get any cut of games “sold” on OnLive, and that may be causing issues with the approval process. But that really shouldn’t matter — Apple doesn’t take a cut of Netflix subscriptions, for example, and the Netflix apps are up and running without a problem.

Or, as you suggest, Apple could simply want to sell iPad native games, and is holding the OnLive app off in order to increase native app sales rather than OnLive game sales. That seems a little too sneaky to me, but you’re welcome to be as paranoid as you want.

Honestly, I don’t think there’s a conspiracy here. The OnLive app makes your iPad more useful, and that’s in everyone’s favor. My guess is just that the app is caught up in the process. You’re right in that it won’t be approved over the App Store freeze, so we at least have to wait another week, but I think it’ll either be approved soon, or we’ll hear back from OnLive or Apple that it hasn’t been accepted for whatever reason. In the meantime, OnLive is available on the Mac as well, so you can play all the games you want there for now. And we’ll keep checking back with OnLive to see when the app is ready for release.

Happy Holidays!

Cousin Mike

Dear Aunt TUAW: Where’s the OnLive App? originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 23 Dec 2011 00:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Over a quarter of photos now taken with smartphones, according to NPD

I’ll ‘fess up — on our wish list earlier this week, I was the one who asked (reasonably, I thought) for an Apple Camera. I’ve been shopping for a DSLR lately, and while the quality of some cameras are great, the interfaces are pretty terrible. I really do wish that Apple would step in and redefine the digital camera interface, matching it with the quality of a professional DSLR lens. But I am probably in the minority at this point, because for most people (as a few of you said in the comments), smartphones are enough.

Indeed, according to a new report from NPD, the percentage of photos taken with a smartphone has jumped from 17% to 27% in the last year, which means more than a quarter of photos taken nowadays (and monitored by NPD, obviously) are taken with smartphones. And those photos are coming at the expense of traditional cameras, which have dropped from 52 to 44 percent.

Most of that image volume is camcorders and lower-end point and shoot devices, however, says NPD. I agree with this — I bought a point and shoot camera about six years ago, but even that shoots with fewer megapixels and less quality than the iPhone 4 I have (and the iPhone 4S’ camera is even better than that). If you have a fairly modern smartphone, or one of Apple’s current iPhones, there’s really no reason to invest in a point-and-shoot camera, unless you’re aiming for one of the high-end features like quick shooting or a zoom lens. A smartphone, as NPD suggests, is almost always “good enough.”

That said, I’ve been playing around with a few DSLR cameras trying to figure out which one I want, and I will say that the ability to manually control the finer aspects of photography, not to mention the quality of a shot that you get directly from a lens, still gives me reason to sometimes want an actual DSLR over a smartphone, and obviously professional photographers need a dedicated camera rather than (or in addition to) something attached to a cell phone.

But maybe, as Apple’s on-device cameras get better, the company will end up closing that gap even further. Maybe, if Apple continues to progress the way it has over the next few years, we won’t need a separate camera device at all.

Show full PR text
Consumers Now Take More Than a Quarter of All Photos and Videos on Smartphones

PORT WASHINGTON, NY, DECEMBER 22, 2011 – Smartphones are becoming the go-to device for many consumers who want to take photos and videos on the fly. According to leading market research company The NPD Group’s new Imaging Confluence Study, the share of U.S. consumers taking photos and videos on their smartphones has grown, while the camera and traditional camcorders share has declined. The percent of photos taken with a smartphone (Apple iPhone or any other smartphone) went from 17 last year to 27 this year while the share of photos taken on any camera dropped from 52 percent to 44 percent.

“There is no doubt that the smartphone is becoming ‘good enough’ much of the time; but thanks to mobile phones, more pictures are being taken than ever before,” said Liz Cutting, executive director and senior imaging analyst at NPD. “Consumers who use their mobile phones to take pictures and video were more likely to do so instead of their camera when capturing spontaneous moments, but for important events, single purpose cameras or camcorders are still largely the device of choice.”

Camcorders and lower-end point-and-shoot cameras appear to have taken the brunt of the movement to smartphones. According to NPD’s Retail Tracking Service, the point-and-shoot camera market was down 17 percent in units and 18 percent in dollars for the first 11 months of 2011. Pocket camcorders were down 13 percent in units and 27 percent in dollars and traditional flash camcorders declined 8 percent in units and 10 percent in dollars.

There were, however, positive growth segments of the market. Detachable lens cameras increased by 12 percent in units and 11 percent in dollars over the same time period, with an average price of $863; and point-and-shoot cameras with optical zooms of 10x or greater grew by 16 percent in units and 10 percent in dollars, with an average price of $247.

Over a quarter of photos now taken with smartphones, according to NPD originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 22 Dec 2011 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Doxie Go mobile scanner cuts the wires, sort of…

Apparent Corporations Doxie scanner has been a hit since it arrived a few years back. It’s small, lightweight, and pretty well perfect for mobile use. So when I heard that the company had come out with a new scanner called Doxie Go ($199) that allegedly removes the need to have a computer around when you need to scan something, I got a bit excited. Read on for a full review of the Doxie Go.

Design

When I first saw the PR blasts for the Doxie Go, my thought was that they’d figured out a way to build in Wi-Fi for a scan-to-cloud solution. Nope. Maybe it would use an iPhone or iPad as a go-between for scanning on the road? Not really. So how do they do PC-free scanning?

It’s quite simple, actually. The scanner has some built-in memory, and also has an SD slot for expanding storage. No SD cards on hand? There’s also a standard USB port into which you can plug a USB flash drive. Once you’ve charged up the device and done a quick calibration, any media placed into the scanner’s slot is captured to memory.

To actually do anything with the scans, you need to move them to another device; either a personal computer or an iPad. The move to the computer is done with a standard USB to mini-USB cable, and the Doxie Go shows up as an external drive. If you’ve installed the Doxie software on your Mac or PC, attaching the Doxie Go launches the application for importing the images. Your alternative is to double-click the Doxie “drive” to transfer the files to your computer.

All of the scans are saved on the device as jpeg images. Using the app, you can also save your images as PDFs or PNG files. Later this month, there’s supposed to be an update that provides optical character recognition (OCR) capabilities for scanning documents and saving them as editable text files.

The Doxie Go is still pretty small and light, perfect for traveling. It weights in at 14.1 ounces and will fit into almost any computer bag at 1.75″ high x 2.125″ deep x 1.5″ wide. It comes with a cloth bag for protection, a USB cable, and a small cleaning tool, but no USB power brick. That’s fine, because most Doxie Go users are going to either have a power brick they can plug into for charging (like the one that comes with the iPad) or a PC or Mac with a USB port.

Functionality

There are two different resolution settings for the Doxie Go — 300 dpi and 600 dpi. To switch between the two settings, you tap on the power button until the light goes from green (300 dpi) to orange (600 dpi). The device automatically scans in color, and is drop-dead simple to use. Turn it on, slide the document in face up on the left side of the scanner slot, and it takes over from there. For older or glossy photos, there’s a special scanning sleeve with a bar code on it to put the photos into.

Scans are quite fast — a 4″ x 6″ color photo at 300 dpi took about 4 seconds, while a full 8.5″ x 11″ black and white document scanned in a little over 8 seconds. At 600 dpi, the scan times were about 11 seconds and 27 seconds respectively.

I mentioned earlier that you can use the Doxie Go with an iPad. To do this, you’ll need the Apple Camera Connection Kit or a similar device. You will need to store scanned images right onto an SD card and put that card into the SD reader dongle from the kit. I tried to attach the scanner directly to an iPad using the USB cable connector from the kit, but the iPad complained that the peripheral used too much power. There is also an iPhone / iPad Sync Kit sold by Doxie for $39, although there are no images or specs for the kit. I would assume that it’s a Camera Connection Kit clone.

With the iPad, I imported scanned documents into the Photo Library, then used Readdle’s PDF Converter app ($6.99) to convert them to PDFs. Once that was done, I could open them in Readdle’s PDF Expert app ($9.99) for annotation and signatures. That’s actually a very useful use case for the Doxie Go — if you need to capture and annotate legal or other work documents just about anywhere, use the scanner, the Camera Connection Kit, and an iPad and you’re good to go.

On the Mac, the software (downloaded directly from Doxie’s website) is pretty basic. You can change the file names, add a counter number to each scan, change the image quality, have the app do some automatic processing of images, and move the scans to local or cloud apps.

The app gave me the choice to send scans to Adobe Reader, Evernote, iPhoto, Picasa, or Preview. For cloud apps, the choices were CloudApp, Flickr, Google Docs, Picnik, Scribd, Tumblr and Twitter. No iCloud or Dropbox, the two cloud apps I use the most. The final choice is to send scans to Doxie Cloud, a free service provided by Doxie for sharing scanned documents and photos.

Conclusion

As you can see from this review, you won’t totally cut the wires when you’re using the Doxie Go. But this scanner can be used to ingest numerous images and documents while you’re away from a computer, and then spew them quickly into whatever app you want.

There are other solutions that might be less expensive. For example, my usual solution for scanning on the go is to snap a photo of documents and receipts with my iPhone using the $1.99 JotNot Scanner Pro app, which acts as an even smaller “scanner” for traveling. On the other hand, JotNot is not made for scanning photos, and it can sometimes take a while to manipulate scanned images to look good.

Other mobile scanners include the NeatReceipts Mobile Scanner ($200), HP ScanJet Pro 1000 ($219.95) and the Fujitsu ScanSnap S1100 ($200). If you’re looking for a fast and incredibly easy mobile scanner, the Doxie Go is definitely a product to consider.

Doxie Go mobile scanner cuts the wires, sort of… originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 22 Dec 2011 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Opena Case: Open beers and protect your iPhone 4/4S

So, where would you expect an iPhone case that also opens beers to come from? If you guessed Australia, you’re absolutely correct. I first heard about the Opena Case (AUD$39.95) when it was a Kickstarter project, and now that they’re in production, I really wanted to try one.

What better device to use to open up a frosty bottle of Fat Tire than an Opena? Like Shimmer, which was both a floor wax and a dessert topping, the Opena is a bottle opener and an iPhone case.

The case is easy to snap onto your iPhone 4/4S and holds on tight. In fact, I had a bit of trouble trying to get the hard case off of my iPhone 4S until I figured out that I could push the phone out from the hole in the back of the case. It’s made of an extremely hard polycarbonate/ABS material that feels like it could withstand the bite of an Australian Saltwater Crocodile with no problems, with a stainless steel bottle opener that slides out smoothly.

Although it seems a little expensive for a case, the Opena is built like a tank while still remaining relatively thin. I used the review case to open a bottle of beer for yesterday’s TUAW TV Live (see video below, starting at 6:45), and then handed the phone and case to a bartender at a local burger joint so she could try it out. Since then, I’ve done a lot of research opening beer bottles and I give the Opena a definite thumbs-up. It’s a little late to order one for Christmas, but hey — it’ll make a heck of a New Year’s gift.

Opena Case: Open beers and protect your iPhone 4/4S originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 22 Dec 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Intuit to deliver Quicken update for Lion compatibility

Christmas from Quicken is coming pretty late, but it will be appreciated by many Mac users. The company has emailed users that it will finally offer a version of Quicken that runs under Lion and Snow Leopard.

Intuit Personal Finance Group GM Aaron Forth wrote users today “I understand the frustration this may have caused you and have put a team in place to address this issue. I am happy to announce that we will have a solution that makes Quicken 2007 for Mac ‘Lion-compatible’ by early spring.”

The company has lost a lot of customers over the issue and much goodwill. The company has some more details about the update on its website, along with a link so customers can be notified when the new version ships.

It’s even a bit more aggravating because Bill Campbell, the former CEO of Quicken parent company Intuit, is a member of the Apple Board of Directors. After Lion was released, Intuit said it had no plans to release a Lion-friendly version of its application. It has been 5 years since Quicken has been updated.

Intuit does offer Quicken Essentials for Mac, but it won’t load Quicken 2007 files and can’t do online bill paying.

Intuit to deliver Quicken update for Lion compatibility originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 22 Dec 2011 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Gannett Co. reportedly buying iPhones, iPads for journalists

A leaked memo from media giant Gannett Company reveals plans to buy thousands of iPhones, iPads and other accessories to use in news gathering.

The memo, from Gannett Newspaper President Bob Dickey says that the new devices “will help our journalists meet the demands of the new news cycle, one that requires agility in real-time reporting, social media and greater emphasis on video storytelling, further increasing our competitive advantage.” Does that mean there’s an app for all of that?

The equipment, in part, will add to ‘digital workstations’ at company locations around the country. The equipment is due to arrive next month, and will be followed by extensive training.

Throughout journalism, print and broadcast reporters are increasingly using consumer cameras and phones to gather and create content. Gannett has been very aggressive in digital media. Its iOS versions of USA Today have been very popular, and it’s interesting to see that the company is turning to Apple not only for distribution, but also for the hardware and technology to collect stories and media as well.

Gannett Co. reportedly buying iPhones, iPads for journalists originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 22 Dec 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Open Source ShareKit 2.0 Easy Social Sharing Library For iOS Apps Is Released

Almost a year and a half ago I first mentioned the ShareKit library for enabling social sharing within iOS apps for urls, files, images, and text to many different social networks including Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr (among others).

This library became extremely popular because with just a few lines of code you could implement social sharing with a very well made interface.

For some time there have been some issues with the library, but the official build was not updated, and updates have been very infrequent at the official repository.   This meant you likely had to tweak it yourself or go searching for a working fork if you wanted to use it in a project.

This is now the ShareKit community repository and includes many updates from numerous forks, and the version has been updated to 2.0.

This build provides numerous fixes, includes support for more social networks (LinkedIn, FourSquare) uses native iOS Twitter support, and promises more frequent updates.

You can find the download repository here.

For up to date instructions you can check out the Wiki.

If you gave up on ShareKit because of the lack updates it looks like time to have another look.

©2011 iPhone, iOS 5, iPad SDK Development Tutorial and Programming Tips. All Rights Reserved.

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AllThis Sleazy Dishonesty

At the weekend, I noticed a tweet that mentioned me, sent from the @allthisfeed account, which is an announcement account for @allthis. It read:

Ten minutes of Matt Legend Gemmell’s attention @allthis @mattgemmell http://j.mp/tGvzmC

The link in the tweet is dead now (as I’ll explain later), but essentially it’s from a startup whose business idea is to ‘trade’ (not sell, they repeatedly assure) the time of other people. The idea is that you bid on ten minutes of time with someone you want to speak to, for any purpose you like.

Continue reading “AllThis Sleazy Dishonesty”