Category: I-phone

Last Friday Motorola won a default judgment in Germany blocking the sale of iPad 3G’s and all iPhones before the iPhone 4S in Germany. The court sided with Motorola after the company successfully argued that Apple violated one of its 3G patents. The ruling was a blow to Apple, especially since Germany is the largest EU market for iOS devices.

However, as AllThingsD point out, the ruling isn’t as devastating to Apple in the short term as it has been made out. First, Apple is immediately appealing the ruling. Second, if they don’t win the appeal they could possible license the 3G patent from Motorola. But most importantly, the ruling won’t have much of a material impact (if any) on Apple’s holiday sales in Germany. That’s because the ruling only applies to the importation of new iOS devices into the country. Any iOS device inventory that is already in the country can still be sold.

No doubt with the holidays here Apple already made sure that Germany had a healthy inventory of iOS devices on hand, and if they believed there was a possibility that they would lose the case they probably stocked up inventory in the country more than usual. As an Apple spokesperson told AllThingsD, “We’re going to appeal the court’s ruling right away. Holiday shoppers in Germany should have no problem finding the iPad or iPhone they want.”

Apple says Motorola patent win won’t deter holiday sales originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 12 Dec 2011 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve already seen some great shots of the Apple Store opening held in Grand Central Terminal in New York last week thanks to our own Mike Rose, but Apple now has the store’s official page posted on its website, with additional photos and information about the big setup. It looks very impressive — as promised way back when, the store is pretty seamlessly integrated into the big GCT lobby, and some really excellent lighting makes the whole place really stand out at night.

I’m impressed. Obviously Apple always does a nice job with its retail spaces, but this is such great design — looks like I’ve got one more destination to add to the tourist list next time I visit the Big Apple.

[via CNN]

Apple posts photos of Grand Central Terminal store opening originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 12 Dec 2011 20:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ubisoft released a version of its Michael Jackson Experience game for iOS recently, and it’s actually a pretty good time. The game was originally created for motion controls with the Xbox Kinect, the Wii, and the PlayStation Move, but here on the iPad, you “dance” by swiping across the screen in various directions, and hitting on or pulling your finger off at certain times.

The dance game is solid, and the production values are actually quite well done. If you like Michael Jackson’s library, there’s some great music here to “perform” and listen to, and the various songs are all accompanied by really well-done cinematic sequences evoking the original music videos and images that went along with the original songs.

Unfortunately, the one big drawback is that there’s not a huge selection of music to pull from. The console versions boasted a choice of about twenty songs, but this version only includes four when you purchase it, and then you need to buy other songs and costumes via in-app purchase. The game itself is $4.99, and then other songs are $1.99 each, though there are only three to choose from. So if you really want to play a game like this and have one of those consoles, you might just be better served finding the game on sale somewhere.

On the other hand, as a taster, this version is not a bad game at all, and once you get all of the moves rolling and have figured out how to do them, it’s fun to play through “Smooth Criminal” or “Beat It” and try to score as many “Perfects” as you can. As a sampler, this one’s pretty good. It’s on the iPad right now for $4.99.

Daily iPad App: Michael Jackson The Experience HD originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 12 Dec 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Last week, Japanese blog Macotakara reported that Apple hosted its “Made For iPhone” (MFI) technology summit in Shenzen, China (translated version). The conference last week, including 2,000 accessory makers and OEMs, featured Apple’s announcement of a new certification chip for MFI accessories and future support for AirPlay over Bluetooth 4.0.

Only 2 percent of the MFI-licensed peripherals on the market use the Bluetooth version of the iPod Accessory Protocol, according to the story, which was introduced in iOS 5. Apple plans to help manufacturers accelerate the development of compatible devices, and grow the AirPlay device ecosystem by 7x by promoting the MFI program.

Bluetooth 4.0 (or Bluetooth Smart) has optional lower power requirements that make it a better fit for always-on remote peripherals, but at the moment the only Apple mobile device that supports 4.0 is the iPhone 4S; Macs with the new Bluetooth stack include the current Mac mini and MacBook Air.

The Verge reports that the article may have been misinterpreted from the original Japanese; the site’s sources say that AirPlay is not headed for Bluetooth 4, but will remain a WiFi-only connection for now. The process of authenticating and linking an AirPlay device, however, may get easier; 9to5Mac’s Seth Weintraub points to the Bluetooth 3.0 HS+ spec, which uses a hybrid of Bluetooth for negotiation and a colocated 802.11 (WiFi) connection for bandwidth up to 24 Mbit, more than adequate for music streaming.

[via AppleInsider, MacRumors]

Apple accessory developer conference pushes AirPlay, Bluetooth originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 12 Dec 2011 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Recently Apple announced their much awaited Rewind 2011, the Apple Rewind is among many developers considered to be the Oscars for the App Store.

In the Navigation category Localscope took the top position, according to their iTunes page, “Localscope is your social data powered GPS app. Always know where you are and what’s around you with Localscope!”

What is really interesting about Localscope is the fact that it lets you decide which services you search. You can use Localscope to “Search & discover places around you with information from multiple geo search engines & social networks: Google, Bing, Foursquare, Twitter, Wikimapia.”

Furthermore Localscope offers an augmented reality view which offers a third option for visualizing your search results beyond a simple list or flat, old-school map.

According to the guys behind Localscope however this is just the beginning, on their website they state “As we gear up to release what we believe to be our greatest creation ever in the upcoming weeks, we are even more excited to envision its impact on our users. Localscope 2.0 will change the way you see your world around you. It will let you look at your vicinity in ways that was never possible before. It is going to be awesome!”

Localscope is available now for $1 and requires an iPhone or iPod touch running iOS 4.0 or later.

The other day on twitter I was asked about available libraries for creating rotary knob controls within iOS apps.

In the past I mentioned a couple of different libraries including rotary knob controls which have not been kept up to date by their developers.  So here are a couple of up to date libraries.

The first library is DCControl from Domestic Cat Software which allows you to easily create customizable slider controls and rotary knob controls.  In the past I mentioned their beautiful custom rounded switch component.

You can download the rotary knob control here.

As you can see in the screenshot below you can adjust the coloring size and shape of the control easily.

The second library is from iOS Apprentice author Matthijs Hollemans. This is a very simple library that handles things properly if you are just looking for a no-nonsense rotary knob control.

You can find the repository here.

Here’s a screenshot:

The third library is for those using HTML5, and this solution was created to emulate the knob controls in Apple’s Garageband.

You can test it out online here, and the Github repository is here.

If you are looking to add a rotary knob control into your apps these libraries should put you on the right track.

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

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If there’s a complaint I have about the many keyboard folio cases for the iPad, it’s that the keyboard is sized to match the long dimension of the device. What that means is that the keyboard is usually quite cramped, and a fast touch-typist like me finds that he or she is constantly making errors. Up to this point, I haven’t found a keyboard, other than Apple’s Wireless Keyboard, that’s even remotely usable with the iPad. Now Logitech has introduced the US$129.99 Fold-Up Keyboard, a full-sized comfortable Bluetooth keyboard that protects your iPad 2 as well.

Design

Think of the Fold-Up Keyboard as a Smart Cover-compatible back shell for the iPad 2 and you’re halfway there. Now add a full-sized keyboard that magically pops out of the back of this device and swivels into place in front of the device as a prop holds it up, and you have the Fold-Up Keyboard.

The keyboard features pretty much all of the keys in the places that you’d expect to find them on the Apple Wireless Keyboard. Rather than a separate row of function keys, however, the fn key works with the number row of the Fold-Up Keyboard to provide iPad-specific functions. Those functions are home, search, slideshow, toggle onscreen keyboard on/off, rewind, play/pause, fast-forward, three volume buttons (mute, middle, loud), and enable lock screen.

There’s only one button on the keyboard that is used to put it into discoverable mode for Bluetooth pairing. Three tiny LEDs near that button indicate that the keyboard is charging or has a low battery, that the keyboard is pairing with an iPad, and that the keyboard is in caps lock mode.

Logitech includes a standard USB to micro-USB cable for charging. The keyboard takes about three hours to charge, but lasts for about 500 hours of typing. No AC adapter is included, which means that you either need to use your iPad’s adapter or another USB adapter for charging.

Functionality

Putting the iPad 2 into the Fold-Up Keyboard is a cinch. Unlike most back shells that I’ve used, the Fold-Up Keyboard actually has a mechanical latch that locks the device into place. Once it’s in there, all you need to do is press another little button that unlocks the keyboard and start unfolding the “stand.” As you do that, the keyboard halves swing into place and form a wide and comfortable keyboard. Opening the keyboard also powers it up; closing the device turns off the keyboard. Be sure to check out the gallery below for images of the keyboard folding into place.

Closing the device is just a matter of grabbing the ends of the keyboard and pushing them towards the iPad. As the keyboard folds back, the stand slides down and the entire thing folds into a somewhat thick (.75 inch) package. If you already have an Apple Smart Cover for your iPad 2, you can use it for full protection of your device.

As for the keyboard itself, it has about the same amount of key travel as the Apple Wireless Keyboard and a similar feel. The keys are about the same size as those on the Apple keyboard and as mentioned earlier, they’re in pretty much identical locations. That means that you don’t have to think about what keyboard you’re using, as the keys are where you’d expect them to be.

When the iPad is in the “locked and upright position” in the Fold-Up Keyboard case, the entire assembly is surprisingly rigid. That makes it quite easy to use the Fold-Up Keyboard and an iPad 2 as a pseudo-laptop without a desk.

Logitech always does a pretty good job of including well-written documentation, and the Fold-Up Keyboard comes with a small booklet that describes exactly how to set up and use the device. Note that if you use the rear-facing iPad 2 camera often, you will need to remove the Fold-Up Keyboard to use it as there is no hole in the case for the camera.

Conclusion

While it’s quite expensive — you could almost purchase two of Apple’s Wireless Keyboards (US$69.99) for the cost of the Logitech Fold-Up Keyboard — this is the most comfortable iPad-specific keyboard I’ve had the pleasure to use. Making a full-width keyboard fold into the dimensions of an iPad was an engineering feat, and Logitech did it perfectly.

Logitech’s Fold-Up Keyboard brings comfortable typing to the iPad 2 originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 12 Dec 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s a wonder that a carrier hasn’t tried this before now. UK carrier O2 has launched a pilot program called O2 Lease, which allows rentals of the iPhone 4S.

Customers can rent the phone for a year. The plan is £55 per month and includes a 16 GB iPhone, 750 minutes, 500 MB of data, unlimited texting and O2’s mobile insurance. An upgrade to the 32 GB-model of the 4S is an extra £10. At the end of the year, the phone must be returned.

O2’s regular 12-month contracts range from £21 to £62 per month with data an £3 to £10 extra.

O2 said that there are a range of business tariffs, designed for small businesses to utilize the phone. Those who participate in the leasing program must keep the phone in good shape or face charges from O2 at the end of the rental period.

[Via Engadget]

Don’t want to buy an iPhone 4S? Rent one originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 12 Dec 2011 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I’ve been a fan of Spacetime Studios‘ MMOs on the iPhone for a while now. That’s right — while multiplayer and even massively multiplayer games are easy to find these days, Spacetime Studios was doing a full-scale World of Warcraft-style MMO back in the early days of iOS with Pocket Legends. The company recently followed that up with the successful Star Legends.

Now it has created another technological wonder. Not only has Spacetime released both MMOs as full browser-based desktop apps on the Chrome Store (playable inside the Google Chrome browser), but it’s somehow figured out cross-platform play, so those playing on iOS could join folks on Android or the desktop in a single game. Obviously, it doesn’t mean much for the game itself (you’ll still just see players in the world as normal) but the tech is very impressive indeed.

Spacetime’s impressive mobile efforts are more compelling when you consider that it started out working on a full-scale PC MMO. Congrats to the team on all of its success. If you haven’t tried these games yet, you should. Spacetime is definitely bringing the MMO genre out to a larger audience across a lot of really new platforms.

Spacetime Studios’ MMOs go cross-platform with a Chrome release originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 12 Dec 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Fire up your updaters, campers, because there’s a prize inside — in theory, anyway. iTunes 10.5.2 has appeared on the iTunes direct download page, but it’s not yet showing up in Software Update, and the KB article covering the update is now 404ing. Reader Chasapple also points out that the Apple security updates page is having a bit of an issue, too; it’s not displaying. Dropping the trailing slash in the URL helps though. 🙂

Nevertheless, if you’re going to download it now, 10.5.2 should be offering the following changes and improvements:

Several improvements for iTunes Match

Fixes a distortion problem playing/importing some CDs

Enjoy!

Thanks Brian!

iTunes 10.5.2 available for direct download originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 12 Dec 2011 17:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Wall Street Journal has a short but interesting piece on the world of Apple t-shirt collecting. There are two types of Apple t-shirts. The first are those shirts that the general public have access to via giveaways at Apple retail stores, such as the t-shirts at an opening of a new Apple Store. The second type are t-shirts that are only available to Apple employees — often at the retail level.

As the WSJ article points out, Apple strictly forbids employees from selling, donating, or giving away the shirts. However, that’s doesn’t stop them from showing up on eBay from time to time. I myself have a small collection of shirts from my years at Apple. You can check a few of them out in the gallery below.

Inside the Apple t-shirt collector world originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 12 Dec 2011 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Twitter upgraded its suite of apps recently and gave Tweetdeck for the Mac a huge overhaul. Users loved the twitter client for its column-based interface and hated it for its reliance on Adobe Air. The latest version of Tweetdeck keeps the columns, but drops Adobe Air. It replaces it with a lighter, simplified interface; but that’s not necessarily a good thing, especially for power users.

The new Tweetdeck is a scaled-down version of the Air Version. It has less room for columns and fewer options for each column. On my 13-inch MBP, I can only show three columns in the new Tweetdeck instead of four. I also can’t filter tweets in a column any more.

Notifications are hit and miss for me as well. You can choose pop-up and audio alerts for each column, but I couldn’t get the pop-ups to work. The audio alerts, unfortunately, worked just fine. The new version adds support for support growl, so you can always use that notification system instead.

There’s also a lot of smaller UI changes. The compose window now appears as an overlay on top of the columns, all external content, including images, launches in an external browser, and so on. Overall, I think the average person will enjoy the small footprint of the app, but power users will miss the extra features. The nice part about missing features, though, is that they can always be added in a future update. You can download Tweetdeck from the Mac App Store for free. Check it out and let us know what you think.

Daily Mac App: Tweetdeck originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 12 Dec 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I got to meet up with Mortal Kombat creator Ed Boon on the red carpet at last weekend’s VGAs, and rather than talking about the popular console fighting series, we instead talked about an iOS title: Batman: Arkham City Lockdown, which Boon’s Netherrealm Studios developed in conjunction with Warner Brothers and the developer behind the console Batman: Arkham City, Rocksteady Studios.

Boon says the game’s release snuck up on him just as much as it did iOS customers. “It’s one of our first iOS games,” he says, “so we were doing it, and the whole process of iOS games, they don’t promote them leading up to the launch, it’s just boom, and you hear about it going out. But we’ve been working on it for quite a while.” Netherrealm has shared assets with Rocksteady before, and the iOS game makes use of models from the console game (both are rendered with Unreal Engine 3), “so yeah,” says Boon, “we’re really proud of it.”

He does admit that the game borrows some ideas from the Infinity Blade series, but there are some cool progression features (not to mention that it uses the Batman license pretty well) that make Lockdown stand out. Boon says iOS development is a little easier than full console development, but it’s getting harder. “It’s not quite as big of a thing, but certainly the presentation is getting on par with the current generation of consoles and whatnot. It’s definitely a more condensed project schedule, but a lot of the same assets.”

And this isn’t the last we’ll see of Netherrealm Studios on Apple’s mobile platforms, according to Boon. “Oh, yeah,” he told me, “we have a number of things in the works. But nothing we can say just yet.

Mortal Kombat creator talks about adapting Batman for iOS originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Do rumors about Apple products affect your buying habits? Tim Cook thinks so, and so do analysts. A report from Philip Elmer DeWitt of Fortune looks closely at this issue and asks whether the recent iPad 3 rumors from Digitimes will hurt Apple’s quarterly iPad 2 sales.

He points to remarks Tim Cook made during Apple’s fourth quarter earnings conference call. Specifically, Cook blamed Apple’s lower-than-expected Q3 iPhone 4 sales on speculation about the iPhone 4S. Customers, Cook explained, waited to get the iPhone 4S instead of the iPhone 4 because they were aware of its imminent launch.

Now that the iPhone 4S is available, rumors about the iPad 3 are spreading, and the iPad 2 is supposedly feeling the effect. In the past month, Digitimes published several rumors claiming Apple is shifting production from the iPad 2 to the iPad 3. DeWitt cites analysts who are lowering their quarterly iPad 2 sales estimates partially because of sales-busting rumors coming out of Digitimes.

It may seem intuitive to seasoned Apple veterans that the company plans to launch the iPad 3 this spring. The average customer, though, may not be aware of Apple’s release schedule and could be influenced when these rumors make it past Digitimes and into bigger publications.

Could DigiTimes rumors affect holiday iPad 2 sales? originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We all love Siri. Whether it’s the fascinating and sometimes unintentionally humorous comments that it makes, or the fact that it’s surprisingly useful in a variety of situations, Siri has captured the imagination of many iPhone users. In a guest post for our sister site Engadget, NPD Group executive director and principal analyst Ross Rubin mused about how great it would be if Siri was paired with GPS navigation capabilities.

Rubin’s got a point — right now Apple’s intelligent assistant can give you directions, but won’t verbalize the turn-by-turn instructions. And navigation apps (and standard GPS navigation units) are, in Rubin’s words, “about as passive an experience as watching TV.”

Rubin imagines a mix of Siri’s conversational interface with GPS navigation. As an example, he wonders if you could ask Siri “How’s the Grand Central Parkway looking?”, and have the app report back on how good or bad traffic currently is on that highway and suggest whether you should switch to another route.

It would be even more useful to have Siri and GPS navigation capabilities to accept off-route, unplanned side trips. Rubin uses the example of heading to a party and getting a call from the host asking you to pick up a cake. You’d ask Siri to find a bakery along the way and add that side trip to the route to the party. As he notes, currently you’d need to pull over, search for the bakery, and then add that destination to your trip.

The post by Rubin ends with the words “GPS technology has always shined when we are on an unfamiliar path. Pairing it with an intelligent network agent, though, could imbue even a familiar journey with an unfamiliar level of convenience.” What do you think? Is Siri-powered navigation coming to future iPhones? Leave your comments below.

If Siri were paired with a GPS app originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 12 Dec 2011 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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