Category: I-phone

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.

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Daily Update for October 10, 2011 originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 10 Oct 2011 15:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HDR photography is a technique that produces images with a very high dynamic range. To produce an HDR image, you take several shots at varying shutter speeds and combine them using a technique called tone mapping to produce the final photograph.

Hydra Pro 3 will allow you to combine up to seven exposures of a scene to wring out the most dynamic range so skies don’t get overexposed and shadow details aren’t lost. This new version has a 12-preset tone mapper, ghost artifact removers, cropping tools, batch processing and export to Facebook, Flickr, Lightroom, Aperture and OS X Mail. You can create a frame around your image, but the color options are limited.

I’ve been testing the app for a few weeks and found it easy to use and getting solid results. You do get extensive control of your image, and you can make it as realistic or as surreal as you like. If you play with the HDR setting on the iPhone, you can get a taste of the technique, but HDR comes into its own when you work with a higher-quality digital camera and more exposures than the iPhone can provide for combining.

I compared Hydra Pro 3 to my first choice in HDR programs, Photomatix Pro. In each set of images I processed, I preferred the Photomatix output. There was more control, and I thought the images had better depth and color. You can see a comparison in the gallery. Hydra Pro 3 failed a few times to automatically align photos. I switched to manual alignment, and that worked fine. Although there is a help menu it did not bring up help, but instead took me to the Creaceed website, where there was no manual for Hydra 3 Pro there either. The company says the manual will be online next week. Swing and a miss.

Hydra 3 is roughly half the cost of Photomatix, and you can sample most of the features of Hydra Pro 3 using Hydra Express 3 for US$24.95. Hydra Pro 3 also includes plug-ins for Aperture and Adobe Lightroom, which is a price advantage over Photomatix which charges for those plug-ins. Hydra Pro 3 has a pleasing and clean interface without a lot of arcane sliders. Of course, simplicity is a trade-off for control, but the end result is good.

Hydra Pro is US$49.99 for the next few days, which is a 50% savings over the normal cost.

Daily Mac App: Hydra Pro 3 originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 10 Oct 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iOS 5 is set to launch this Wednesday and the beta testers I’ve talked to say it’s a monumental leap forward. iOS 5 adds over 200 features to an already polished mobile operating system, which is arguably the best on the planet.

As many Mac users know, Mac OS X Lion is no slouch either. Features like Mission Control, Launchpad, and full-screen apps make Lion the most powerful, intuitive OS Apple has ever released.

However, that’s not to say that Lion can’t be improved. Apple only needs to look to iOS for further inspiration. Below is my list of five iOS features that I hope will migrate to OS X. Feel free to leave your requests in the comments.

5. iBooks

I actually just added this one in because I know a lot of people have asked for it. Even paperback fans can’t deny that ebooks are the future. Though they may not be quite up in Kindle territory, iBooks and the iBookstore are growing more popular by the day. While users can access their iBooks on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch, there’s no way to get them on the Mac…yet.

This is one area where Apple needs to take a play from Amazon. Kindle owners can read their books on the Kindle, the iPhone, iPad and Android phones, as well as with Mac and Windows apps and a web browser. While reading an iBook on a desktop might not be the platform of choice, it would be nice if iBooks users had the option. This is especially true for people who buy research or school books through iBooks and want to reference the book on the same screen as an assignment in progress.

4. Notification Center

The Notification Center is one of the big new features of iOS 5. It allows users to see all their texts, emails, news alerts — nearly every kind of notification — all in one place. Currently OS X relies on numbered icon badges to show users notifications on a per-app basis. And while there are third-party apps like Growl that do a good job at alerting users to notifications, a dedicated Notification Center would further solidify the link between iOS and OS X and make it easier for users to see the things they need to attend to all in one place.

3. Reminders

The great thing about OS X’s and iOS’s Mail and Notes app is that a user’s email messages and notes sync between iPhone and Mac. However, iOS 5 offers a dedicated Reminders app that allows users to set reminders with an impressive array of notification options.

While a dedicated Reminders app makes infinitely more sense on a mobile device, OS X Reminders integration would be a welcome feature. After all, many of us will use the app to set reminders for tasks to be completed at our desks. Why not be reminded by the computer we are working on?

I’m not suggesting a dedicated Reminders OS X app. But what I would like to see is the Reminders app features and UI built into OS X’s Mail app, much like Notes is today.

[Note: Many readers have rightly pointed out that Reminders.app reminders are synced with iCal on your Mac. However, my take on it is that the array of ways to set reminders in the iOS app and the app’s UI should be integrated better with OS X.]

2. iMessage

FaceTime was perhaps the coolest feature of iOS 4. When it first came out it allowed iPhone 4 users to video chat with each other. Then Apple added iPod touch support and iPad 2 support. But, for me, FaceTime didn’t become really useful until Apple released the FaceTime app for OS X. When they did, FaceTime brought unity to the entire Apple ecosystem (which, incidentally, is the common theme of all my feature suggestions in this article).

iMessage in iOS 5 is arguably cooler than FaceTime because many people text a heck of a lot more than video chat. iMessage is great because it allows free texting among iPhone owners. But what’s even more impressive is that it also allows iOS users to text people on Wi-Fi-only iPod touches and iPads. Like FaceTime before it, the last piece of the puzzle is adding iMessages to OS X. It’s a lot easier for me to reply to a text from my iMac while I’m working on it than to stop and pick up my iPhone.

Of course, the arrival of iMessage and FaceTime presents somewhat of a problem. I’ve had a lot of people who aren’t the most Mac-savvy users say they are confused about the differences between FaceTime and iChat’s video conferencing. If Apple would add an OS X iMessage app, that would probably only broaden the confusion (“Is an iMessage the same thing as an AOL IM?”). While I think Apple needs to absolutely add iMessage functionality to OS X, it needs to do so without adding more clutter and confusion to its messaging (be it IM, video, or texting) apps. Do they scrap iChat in favor of an iMessage app? Or do they add iMessage support to iChat? Dedicated apps are simpler, but all-in-one apps are more convenient. It’s a tough call.

1. Siri

Siri, iOS 5’s AI personal assistant, is the start of the future for smart phones. It takes dictation, and lets you do dozens of other things using only your voice. But it’s not just voice recognition software. It’s powerful AI that knows what you want based on syntax, history, and context. There are no rigid voice commands needed. You can talk to it like you do to a human being and it figures out what you want it to do.

Right now Siri is only available on the iPhone 4S. That’s because it requires quite a bit of horsepower under the hood to accomplish its tasks. Or, quite a bit of horsepower for a phone. Every Mac sold today has more than enough memory and processing power to support Siri integration. And when Apple adds Siri to OS X it will be the start of a revolution in personal computing. Indeed it may one day even lead to the elimination of (or drastic reduction of) the keyboard and mouse. And don’t get me started (yet) on a Siri-integrated Apple television set. Goodbye remote control. But first, let’s get Siri into OS X.

Imagine being able to talk to your Mac like you do a person, saying things like:

“Pull up the Keynote for my April meeting.”

“Take me to Apple’s website.”

“Revert to the Version that I was working on last week.”

“Show me all the photos from my trip to Berlin.”

“Organize all my Word files into a folder and then sort them into sub-folders based on month created.”

The possibilities are almost endless.

Hello OS X 10.8.

5 iOS features that OS X needs originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 10 Oct 2011 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Poietic Studio has created a unique iPhone app and musical instrument that lets you conduct a virtual floating orchestra. The instrument has 19 small spheres that float on a puff of air above individual interconnected cups. Each sphere is matched to a different instrument and will rise and fall in response to volume. Just like a conductor controlling a real orchestra, users can control each instrument and its volume via an iPhone app. The first iteration of this app-device combo uses controls on the iPhone screen, while the next version will use motion control. The Floating Orchestra was recently on display at Brighton Dome Concert Hall, Corn Exchange and Pavilion Theatre in England.

[Via PSFK]

Use your iPhone to conduct a floating orchestra originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 10 Oct 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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One of the things Android phone owners love to brag about — particularly those who have the new Samsung Galaxy S II with its 4.27-inch diagonal screen — is that the larger screens are much easier to read and watch videos on. Dustin Curtis has owned both the iPhone 4 and the Galaxy S II, and in an enlightening post on his blog, he pointed out why bigger isn’t always better.

Curtis noted that the iPhone 4’s design allows you to hold the device in one hand and touch almost any part of the screen with your thumb. You can’t do that with the larger Galaxy S II, as seen in the diagram (size is incorrectly marked by Curtis) at the top of this post. The green area designates the reach of the thumb when holding the device in one hand, and there’s a lot of Galaxy S II real estate that’s not under that field of green.

According to Curtis, “Touching the upper right corner of the screen on the Galaxy S II using one hand, with its 4.27-inch screen, while you’re walking down the street looking at Google Maps, is extremely difficult and frustrating.” He concluded the post with a point that all Apple owners instinctively know, but can rarely explain: “This is an example of one of those design decisions that you don’t usually notice until you see someone doing it wrong. It’s one of the things that makes Apple products Apple products.”

Size matters: why the iPhone has a 3.5-inch screen originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 10 Oct 2011 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Just as the sun always rises in the morning, every time a new iPhone is about to come out, somebody gets one just before the official launch and ruins the fun for the rest of us. In this case, a video from AppVV.com appears to show an iPhone 4S running some benchmarks and also demonstrates how to change Siri settings.

In the video, the phantom user opens Settings and demonstrates the Siri settings interface, turning the feature on and off, changing language settings, and more. What’s even more fascinating is that the user runs the BrowserMark benchmark, and shows a score of 89567. Running BrowserMark on an iPhone 4 with iOS 5 showed a result of 52433, so Safari on the iPhone 4S is about 70% faster than on the iPhone 4.

Some TUAW readers are reporting that they’re receiving early ship notices for delivery on the 14th. How about you? Tell us in the comments.

Video reportedly shows Siri in action, settings, and benchmarks originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 10 Oct 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The excitement surrounding the iPhone 4S continues to build now that pre-order customers are receiving shipping notices. Customers, particularly those on Sprint, are receiving shipping confirmation notices from UPS that their packages are being processed. Most packages are being shipped 2nd day air, but don’t expect your iPhone 4S to arrive earlier than the 14th. In the past, UPS’s policy was to hold Apple shipments at the local warehouse until the set delivery date (though a few may slip through). Even if you beg and plead for the packages at the warehouse, UPS will not release them until the designated time.

It’ll be a long week of waiting and checking on UPS status updates for those with pre-ordered iPhone 4S handsets, but you should be able to rest easy knowing that you don’t have to camp out

Customers begin to receive iPhone 4S shipment notices originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 10 Oct 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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During a recent edition of TUAW TV Live, the question of how iCloud works in applications came up. After some internal consultation, we came to the conclusion that Apple has fully announced this feature and that its workings would not be considered confidential.

In that spirit, here’s an introduction to iCloud’s internals summarized from material in my upcoming iOS 5 Developer’s Cookbook expanded edition.

In its simplest form, iCloud is merely a special folder. It lives on the iOS device in /private/var/mobile/Library/Mobile Documents/. That folder hosts all application material that applications share to the cloud.

Applications have partial permission to read from and write to this folder. That permission is developer-specific. As with the password keychain, developers can share cloud data between applications.

For example, all apps developed by App Company X could share, view, and update the same document set. You cannot share data outside of your developer account. So my apps cannot see App Company X documents, and vice-versa.

The Mobile Documents folder is monitored by iOS. When files are modified, the device automatically uploads changes to the cloud. Those changes propagate out to all other devices registered to the same account. This is handled by a local OS service, and applications aren’t directly involved.

Instead, applications subscribe to a variety of classes and notifications that allow them to know when changes occur. They can then resolve conflicts to bring local data into harmony with the iCloud versions.

How developers do this is up to them. They may choose a “most recent change wins” strategy. Or they may combine changes in some other manner. It’s the application’s job to ensure that data presented on one unit matches the data on other units, so long as there is network communication available to handle that conformance.

The tricky bits happen when a user drops out of communication. For example, you might edit a to-do list on a plane, when you have no net access, while your partner updates his or her to-do list in another city. Developers have worked for months on strategies for combining those changes and updating their documents to honor edits from both parties.

In the end, there’s very little in the way of iCloud APIs. It’s really just a folder that is synchronized to offsite-storage. The trick will be how well developers think about different ways that distance, connection, and time can affect the way documents in that folder must adapt to user updates.

How iCloud works originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 10 Oct 2011 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A leaked Sprint slide suggests the wireless carrier will not be offering its Total Equipment Protection plans for the iPhone 4S. Customers with an iPhone 4S who want to add a protection plan to their phone are encouraged to purchase an AppleCare+ plan. These new plans from Apple offer accidental damage on top of the traditional coverage for $99. You can also purchase a third party plan from a company like Square Trade or through your homeowners or renters insurance. The wording “not sold at launch” on the slide also leaves open the possibility that Sprint my change its mind and open up the TEP plans some time after launch.

Sprint may not extend equipment protection plan to iPhone 4S originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 10 Oct 2011 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple has reported that iPhone 4S pre-orders topped one million units in a single day, breaking the previous single-day record held by the iPhone 4 (600,000). In fact, it was Apple’s most successful first-day pre-order ever. Apple’s Phil Schiller said in a press release, “We are blown away with the incredible customer response to iPhone 4S.”

The iPhone 4S will be available for sale on October 14 in more than 22 countries, including Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, and Finland.

The iPhone 4S generated more opening day pre-orders than any other Apple product. Sure sounds like a “dud,” eh, CNN?

iPhone 4S pre-orders top 1 million in 24 hours originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 10 Oct 2011 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Big Blue Bubble is the developer behind the Burn the Rope game that we liked a while back. They’re back on the App Store with the strange but fun Fling a Thing. In this one, you control a little creature (which is actually a little too close to a bug for me to really like it, but we got along anyway) with a sucker on one end, so that you can stretch him back and fling him up into the upper part of the screen. There, you’ll find items and bubbles to collect, and the game itself is a distance title, where you try to make your way up through various sets of stages while trying to do the best you can with the limited number of shots you’re given.

The mechanic itself isn’t all that original, but the game is really well polished, and the difficulty curve is very nicely tuned. Early on, the game seems pretty simple and easy, but as you go up the ladder, more and more items and complexity appear, and eventually the game starts getting the better of you. It’s fun, and while the game isn’t quite as tight as it could be (there’s a “feeding” mechanic for your creatures that I didn’t understand at all), what’s there is entertaining enough.

Fling a Thing is available for a buck on the App Store. It’s a simple but colorful palate cleanser of a game.

Daily iPhone App: Fling a Thing originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 10 Oct 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s Sunday, and like most every Sunday, we will be getting together for the Talkcast tonight at 10PM Eastern, 7PM Pacific time. This week’s will be unpredictable since we have happy news to discuss, as well as less happy news. We have some guests joining us tonight as well, and we’d love to hear your memories of Steve. Prepare for some laughter and (at least on my part) probably some audible sadness as well.

Your calls and questions help us make the show the best it can be, otherwise I’m just talking to myself! To participate on TalkShoe, you can use the browser-only client, the embedded Facebook app, or download the classic TalkShoe Pro Java client; however, for maximum fun, you should call in. For the web UI, just click the Talkshoe Web button on our profile page at 4 HI/7 PDT/10 pm EDT Sunday. To call in on regular phone or VoIP lines (yay for free cellphone weekend minutes!): dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077 — during the call, you can request to talk by keying in *8.

If you’ve got a headset or microphone handy on your Mac, you can connect via the free Gizmo, X-Lite, or Blink SIP clients; basic instructions are here. Talk to you tonight!

Talkcast tonight, 10pm ET/7pm PT: Somber Edition originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sun, 09 Oct 2011 20:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve seen all sorts of Steve Jobs tributes over the last few days, with most Apple Stores worldwide being showered with flowers, personal messages, and even old Macs. TUAW reader James Risley saw a unique tribute to Steve in Chicago — two of the ubiquitous street banners in that city, showing the now-iconic portrait of Jobs on one side, and the new “Steve Jobs Apple logo” by Jonathan Mak on the other. Risley whipped out his iPhone and took this shot for posterity.

Both banners say “Steve Jobs, 1955 – 2011”, but on the black banner is a touch that only a Mac fan could appreciate. It’s a progress bar, like that seen when you’re listening to a song in iTunes It’s a horizontal scroll bar, starting in 1955 and stopped short in 2011. Above the progress scroll bar is the song title — “Thanks, Steve.”

Risley only saw one banner, which was put up on October 7. This is probably a personal tribute for Jobs, but it’s nice that the City of Chicago allowed it to be raised in his honor.

Thanks to TUAW reader Jeffrey for pointing out that it was a scroll bar and not a progress bar.

Update: The “culprits” who put up the personal tribute to Steve are from ImageFiction of Chicago. Eric from ImageFiction reports that “the city didn’t allow it or disallow it, we just did it! Just like Steve would like it.” Check out the gallery of photos below, courtesy of ImageFiction.

Steve Jobs banner in the Windy City a nice tribute (Updated) originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sun, 09 Oct 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This week, Apple announced that for the first time you will be able to get a free iPhone with a 2-year contract.

The “catch”? The iPhone is the 3GS (not the 4 or 4s).

Now if you are someone who regularly reads tech websites and who thinks it’s perfectly logical to stand in line for hours to get the newest iPhone (or to get up in the middle of the night to order one online), then the iPhone 3GS might seem like a relic to you. But for the millions of cell phone users who don’t have smartphones, the iPhone 3GS would be a great purchase.

The hardware is excellent, and it supports AT&T’s 3G network. No, it doesn’t do “4G” — but for most Americans, we don’t live anywhere with 4G coverage anyway; people looking for a free smartphone probably aren’t going to care about 4G, if they even know what it is. Subjectively speaking, my wife actually prefers the 3GS because she says the curved back fits better in her hand.

The iPhone 3GS has a bigger App Store than Android or Windows Phone alternatives. When Apple releases iOS 5 in a few days, the 3GS users will be able to upgrade to it, free of charge.

All told, it’s a great phone, and in the USA it is only available on AT&T because Verizon didn’t have the iPhone until version 4. It is now available for free (with the same 2 year contract you’re going to be stuck with anywhere).

You might think that AT&T would want to grab this opportunity to let people know about this great offer. You might think that, assuming that you haven’t watched AT&T bungle nearly every opportunity the iPhone has given it.

The latest example arrived today: an email from AT&T with the Subject: “Huge online selections of free phones from AT&T!” Because I am, at heart, an optimist, I thought “Oh, they are going to start promoting the free iPhone deal.”

I was wrong.

Inside the email, there are 3 phones shown (see screenshot above). The first two have tiny, hardware keyboards, and the third (in the background) shows something that looks like an iPhone knockoff but with rounded sides.

No picture of the iPhone 3GS.

No mention of the iPhone 3GS.

They mention “Apple” as one of the manufacturers, but they don’t use the name “iPhone” at all. The best-known smartphone brand in the world, and AT&T doesn’t even mention it. They can make a “free iPhone” offer that no one else in the USA can make, and they didn’t make it.

If you wanted to be extremely generous, maybe you would want to say that the email had a limited amount of space for the image, so they couldn’t fit the iPhone into the picture. But even if you click through to the “shop now and save” link, the resulting page doesn’t show the iPhone 3GS at all.

Frankly, I don’t know if AT&T is purposefully downplaying the iPhone, or whether they want to push people towards the iPhone 4 or 4S if they want “an iPhone” or if they just plain blew an opportunity to promote an advantage that they have over Verizon and Sprint. But I know which one I’d go with if I had to guess.

AT&T misses another iPhone opportunity originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sun, 09 Oct 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SRS Labs has just released MyTunes, a free iPhone app that rather dramatically enhances music playback on your iDevices. Instead of using the stock player provided by Apple, you launch the MyTunes app, select your playlists, albums or artists, and you’re away.

The sound of most tracks transforms in an often spectacular fashion. Matt Yaney of SRS told me the app uses a variety of proprietary techniques to eliminate the degradation provided by MP3 encoding and produce a more natural and immersive experience, usually lost by the recording and compression process.

I have to agree. Listening to a variety of Rock, New Age, Jazz and Classical improved every track I tried. Bass was firmer, percussion was much sharper, and the position of instruments across the sound stage are more precise. The changes just aren’t a matter of boosting high and low frequencies, there is a good deal of sophisticated audio processing taking place. I found the effects most pronounced on music that was recorded live with acoustic instruments, but as I said, just about every genre of music sounded better.

This app is a bit of a breakthrough for SRS Labs, because the only previous way to get this technology was with a hardware dongle on the SRS Wow! product. I’ve compared the 2 systems, and found the audio quality quite close. The SRS Wow! does have an actual hardware DAC (digital audio converter) but I was hard pressed to hear the difference when listening to MyTunes.

There are a few caveats. The MyTunes app won’t work with any music that has DRM, and it won’t work on any videos you have. Since the app only connects to your iTunes library, it won’t enhance Pandora, Spotify or any online streaming services.

If you want even more features there is a US$4.99 in-app purchase that provides additional custom controls for audio enhancement, more EQ settings, volume leveling, and an simpler interface to use when driving. I didn’t find the extra features all that compelling, but SRS Labs will let you sample them for ten minutes to see if they are worthwhile for you.

If you listen to a lot of music on your iDevice, and most of us do, I wouldn’t hesitate to download MyTunes. The basic app is free. It takes a little effort to explore all the features provided, but if you try it I think it will have a permanent place on your iPhone or iPod touch. The app also will work on an iPad, but MyTunes is not universal, and a separate iPad app is coming later this year.

Give the app a listen and report your impressions in comments, and check the gallery out for some screen shots.

MyTunes for iPhone gives your music an impressive kick originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sun, 09 Oct 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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