Category: I-phone

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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Mobile devices like the iPad, the iPhone, and the iPod touch have one unfortunate trait in common — they’re very easy for someone to steal. With the great demand for the iPad 2, you will want to keep it locked away somewhere or take it with you everywhere just to keep thieving hands off of the device. Now Griffin Technology has announced the TechSafe Locking Case + Cable Lock for the iPad 2 (US$79.99), a way of locking your iPad to a desk or table to make it much more difficult for it to be stolen.

Design

Compared to some of the beautiful cases I’ve had the pleasure to review, the TechSafe Locking Case is very plain. But it looks and feels sturdy, and that’s what you want when you’re using the case and the included cable lock to keep your iPad 2 from walking away.

The case slides apart for easy installation of the iPad 2, with the top frame sliding off of the bottom frame. You drop the iPad 2 into the bottom piece, then slide the top frame back on. The result is a very solid case. On the back of the bottom piece are two rectangular bumps. These not only add an area to help you grip the iPad 2, but each has a small indentation that can be used to expose a fold-out stand. One of the stands props the iPad 2 up vertically in landscape orientation for watching movies, while the other is useful when typing on the iPad.

The lock is the niftiest part of the setup. Griffin’s TechSafe Cable Lock design makes it possible to secure laptops like the MacBook Air that don’t have a Kensington lock port. To do this, Griffin created a hardened steel “LockBlade” that slides into the small opening in the hinge area between the screen and keyboard of the MacBook Air. The included cable lock has a hook on it that fits into a hole in the steel LockBlade, securing the laptop to the cable and to a large, immovable piece of furniture.

On the Locking Case, the LockBlade slides into a slot on the case. That keeps the case from sliding open and connects it to the cable lock. It’s a smart way to reuse the Cable Lock technology on a different type of equipment, and it wouldn’t be out of the question for Griffin to even extend this to a Locking Case for iPhone 4/4S and iPod touch. In situations where you want to keep those items from walking away, a case like that could come in very handy.

Functionality

The TechSafe case is very well made. All of the pieces in this puzzle need to fit together perfectly, and the case slides onto and off of the iPad 2 easily. If you have another case that you love to use with your iPad 2, but you’d like to secure your iPad in a hotel or conference room while you’re eating dinner or partying with friends, just slip off the other case, slide the iPad 2 into the TechSafe, slide in the LockBlade, and clip on the combination lock.

The stands are very usable and well placed on the case, and I found the “bumps” on the back of the case to be perfect for getting a good grip while carrying the iPad 2 around.

Now, my one concern. Although this is a security case and it’s a pretty good one, it would take a determined thief with the right tools only a few seconds to get the iPad out. What tools? A small pocket tool like a Leatherman with a built-in saw would rip right through the plastic, making it a cinch to pull out the LockBlade and walk off with the iPad. However, in most situations a thief may overlook anything that has a lock attached to it simply because it takes time to work on it. This deterrence factor will probably help you more than the plastic than the case is made out of.

I do recommend that buyers look at one more piece of equipment that Griffin has developed to work with the cable lock and case — the $19.99 Locking Security Clamp can help you in those situations where you can’t find a suitable piece of furniture to lock your iPad to.

Conclusion

Griffin’s TechSafe case and the cable lock are the right product at the right time. For those who need a way to secure an iPad to a table or other piece of furniture, it’s a reasonably-priced solution and a heck of a lot less expensive than replacing an iPad.

Griffin TechSafe Locking Case + Cable Lock keeps your iPad 2 secure originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sat, 08 Oct 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I spotted this great piece of graffiti art on the streets of Hollywood while heading home last night, and thought you TUAW readers would enjoy it. Unfortunately, I have no idea who actually put this up — there wasn’t any tag or signature on it, and it was just on a wall otherwise covered with various other pieces and posters.

But in a way, that made it even better — just one person’s anonymous sentiment that echoes what so many of us feel. And I can tell you that the excellent detail and stark spray of the whole thing (if you can’t tell, the whole picture was about eight feet tall, and really stood out on the corner) was pretty awesome to see. Thanks, LA artist, and thank you to the late great Steve Jobs as well.

Spotted in Los Angeles: Thank you, Steve originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sat, 08 Oct 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Since the iPhone 4S features the same A5 processor as the iPad 2, owners of Apple’s current-gen tablet have wondered if it’s possible that Siri, Apple’s new voice assistant, might be offered on the iPad 2. While my colleague Erica Sadun’s answer to that is “Don’t hold your breath,” I only agree with her up to a point: I don’t think there are any technical hurdles whatsoever to running Siri on an iPad 2, and the fact that the device doesn’t currently feature voice controls is meaningless. I think Siri will come to the iPad 2 eventually — certainly not right away, but possibly within the next six months.

Voice Control as it now exists on the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 doesn’t function on the iPad or iPad 2, but there’s a reason for that: the existing commands would be essentially useless on those devices. The pre-Siri version of Voice Control allows you to use voice commands to control music playback, dial phone numbers or initiate FaceTime calls, and ask the device for information about the current time or currently playing song. That’s about all Voice Control does. Those functions are all useful features on a device that spends much of its time in your pocket, but on an iPad they make very little sense.

On the other hand, Siri’s commands would be immensely useful on the iPad. The same things Apple showed off at the “Let’s talk iPhone” event, like setting up Reminders and Calendar events or looking up information on Wikipedia or Wolfram Alpha, would be very handy to have — so handy that I don’t see why Apple wouldn’t offer them. Apple has long been a company that designs products its own workers want to use, and it’s hard to imagine that no one in Cupertino has thought about how Siri could vastly expand the power and capability of the iPad 2.

Since the iPad 2 has both a microphone and the same A5 as the iPhone 4S, there shouldn’t be any technical reason why Siri wouldn’t function well on that device. Some have speculated that the iPhone 4S has 1 GB of RAM to the iPad 2’s 512 MB (a claim that will have to wait for an iFixit teardown before it can be proven or disproven), but my TUAW colleagues don’t believe that Siri’s functions should be so RAM-intensive that they require such massive amounts of memory.

In fact, we’ve done some digging into Siri and found that most of the actual work of understanding voice commands gets offloaded to external servers. In essence, the iPhone 4S and its built-in processing functions determine what you said, while Apple’s servers translate that into what you meant and send that information back to your iPhone. The pre-processing that takes place on the device itself may be too taxing for an A4 processor, but the iPad 2’s A5 should theoretically be able to handle it just fine. Perhaps even better — Apple has a habit of underclocking CPUs for the iPhone in the interest of power management, so the iPad 2’s A5 is likely to outperform that of the iPhone 4S for many functions.

The fact that Apple hasn’t yet said one way or another whether Siri will come to devices other than the iPhone 4S also doesn’t mean much. The iPhone 4, 3GS, and newer iPod touch models had an exclusive on multitasking for almost exactly six months before iOS 4.2 debuted and brought that feature to the iPad, and the same thing may end up being true for Siri.

Here’s what I think is the most likely scenario: Siri will remain an iPhone 4S exclusive at least until the third tier of international rollouts completes in December. In fact, Apple will probably wait until after the end of the holiday quarter and bring Siri to the iPad 2 in the first quarter of 2012. Not only will this give market incentive for people to buy the iPhone 4S by having Siri as a device-exclusive feature during the holiday period, it’ll also give Apple’s servers and Siri’s algorithms time to adjust and scale to the number of inquiries it’ll receive.

Once Siri’s beta period ends and international rollouts for the iPhone 4S are reasonably complete, that’s the perfect time to bring Siri to the iPad 2 in a dot-update to iOS 5. By that time Siri and its supporting infrastructure will be more mature and able to handle the extra load of adding support for one more device type, and it should also help alleviate the typical post-holiday quarter sales slump.

As for the other devices in Apple’s iOS stable, like the iPod touch, iPhone 4, and iPhone 3GS, I don’t expect them to ever see support for Siri. Siri’s developers have already confirmed that many compromises were required to get the service running on the iPhone 3GS, and it’s probably the same story for iOS devices with an A4 processor. The 2012 model iPod touch will likely be updated to an A5 processor, however, so we might see Siri support for next year’s iPod touch.

For the time being, Siri remains an iPhone 4S exclusive and one we have yet to test for ourselves. We look forward to putting this innovative feature under our interrogation lights once the iPhone 4S is released on October 14.

Why Siri should (and probably will) come to iPad 2 originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sat, 08 Oct 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jeff Rock happened to notice a push notification on his iPhone after installing Shazam. He checked it and it turned out to be an advertisement that had popped up. Since it didn’t seem like expected behavior (push notification of an advert?), Jeff tweeted the Shazam folks to ask about it. Instead of a) Apologizing and trying to sort it out, b) Taking him seriously and helping troubleshoot, or c) Ignoring him entirely, they chose d) Tell Jeff it was clearly his fault.

Not so fast there, Shazam…missing the point he was trying to make, they told him that he must have turned notification on himself and needed to turn them off. Let me just point out that his complaint was not that he received A notification, it was that he received an AD as a notification. Telling them so got him the reply that he had clearly opted-in to notification at some point.

Jeff, trying to be more clear, quoted back chapter and verse from the iOS Program Standard Agreement that this particular “feature” was violating. This got a different response at least; now they say they’ll “look into it”.

For Jeff in particular, I can see how this would be extra frustrating. He’s a developer himself, co-founder of Mobelux who built the app that is now the official iOS Tumblr client. It seems the number of “Can you believe I got rejected for that!?” incidents is in decline, but with the number of apps that still get rejected for small reasons, it is odd this particular violation happened to make it through the approval process.

Shazam violates Developer Agreement, blames Jeff Rock originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sat, 08 Oct 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony Pictures has successfully bid for the rights to turn Walter Isaacson’s authorized biography of Steve Jobs into a motion picture. Deadline reports the deal is worth between one to three million dollars and headed by producer Mark Gordon. Deadline suspects bidding had already been taking place for film rights, but recent events have intensified interest.

Sony Pictures is responsible for the Oscar-winning film The Social Network, a semi-biographical account of Mark Zuckerberg’s creation of Facebook. Even though Sony Pictures has apparently secured film rights, any film version of Steve Jobs is likely to be years away from seeing release in theatres, which may slightly help alleviate the turmoil some of us might feel at the news of this film coming so soon after his death.

Pirates of Silicon Valley, another semi-biographical film portraying a young Steve Jobs, debuted on TNT in 1999. Needless to say, there’s a lot of Steve Jobs’s life that movie couldn’t have covered. As long as the film version of Steve Jobs is handled tastefully and with dignity (and isn’t released while all of our emotions are still raw), it’s got my support.

Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs will be released October 24.

Sony Pictures acquires rights to Steve Jobs biopic originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sat, 08 Oct 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There are a few sales going around this weekend — most of them are in tribute to the late, great Steve Jobs.

• Steph Thirion’s Eliss is free in tribute to Jobs and his life.
• RPG puzzler Crystal Soul is also free.
• Line-drawing air combat title Pigs in Trees is free for a day.
• The official Jaws game is free as well, to celebrate the release of its sequel.
• And so is Chicken Escape and its iPad counterpart. That’s a lot of free apps!
• Gameloft is having a Columbus Day sale, with Modern Combat 2, 9mm, The Settlers, Sacred Odyssey, and Final Fantasy-alike Eternal Legacy all on sale for just 99 cents. Their HD versions are on sale as well, so some great deals there.
• All of Arianesoft’s apps are on sale this weekend, including the Minecraft-inspired puzzler Terracraft.
• Trainz Simulator on the iPad is just 99 cents, a must-have for any train fans.
• And Anomaly Warzone Earth (and its HD version) is still on sale at just 99 cents. If you haven’t picked that one up yet, you’re crazy. The iPad game especially is amazing.

Once again, there’s plenty of good stuff out there to play this weekend.

iOS apps on sale and free this weekend originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 07 Oct 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AT&T is reportedly pressuring Apple to advertise the 14.4 Mbps theoretical maximum download speed of the iPhone 4S as “4G” in the iPhone’s status bar. Given AT&T’s aggressive attempts to market HSPA+ as 4G, that’s not surprising. What is surprising is that according to This is my next, Apple is apparently bowing to that pressure and will show “4G” in the iPhone 4S status bar. AT&T has confirmed it is “working with Apple” on the matter.

While HSPA+ is faster than the standard supported by the iPhone 4 and earlier phones, it is not “true” 4G even if AT&T is advertising it that way. Given the litigious nature of the mobile industry, particularly any time Apple’s involved, it seems like a terrible mistake for Apple to bow to AT&T and advertise a feature the iPhone 4S doesn’t actually offer.

If AT&T and Apple do indeed tout “4G” in the iPhone 4S status bar, you can be virtually certain you’ll be seeing the following headline or some variant of it all over the Web very soon afterward: “Class action lawsuit begins over false ‘4G’ iPhone claims.” You can be just as certain that various pundits will go out of their way to blame Apple more than AT&T. It’s all so very predictable that it’s hard to imagine what possible advantage Apple sees in agreeing to AT&T’s proposal.

We’ve dug through the iOS 5 firmware in an attempt to locate icons for 4G status in the iPhone 4S status bar. We weren’t expecting to find such an icon in iOS 5.0, and we didn’t — all that’s there are the icons for EDGE, GPRS, and 3G (UMTS). If Apple is indeed planning on hyping 4G in the status bar, it’s going to have to come about in a future iOS update.

Apple reportedly working with AT&T to display ‘4G’ in status bar originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 07 Oct 2011 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Kitty is a US$4.99 virtual cat. Developed by Alex Komarov (that same guy who created that marvelous accordion application demonstrated at the iPad roll-out), Kitty provides an interactive virtual pet-ownership experience.

I am clearly not the target audience for this app. I have a daughter though, who loves cats and loves apps. I decided to test it out with her.

After spending a while exploring the app, my gradeschooler was quickly looking for some other game to engage in.

“It’s a little annoying,” she explained to me. “I don’t like her purring. She just won’t stop the [raspy gagging sound].” When I asked her to elaborate, she said, “At first, she really just seemed to hate me. She kept making [angry rawr sounds]. And then, it’s kind of hard to wake her up.”

In other words, the cat was acting like a cat.

This application is huge. It takes up 108 MB on your iPad, and works far better on the faster iPad 2 than the original version, as we discovered.

It also worked better for me as a tech demo than an actual application. The graphics are phenomenal — your touches seem to interact with the fur, you can see Kitty breath in and out.

Unfortunately, the cat is a bit too realistic. Wake her from her nap and she gets pretty cranky. Unlike a puppy, she has absolutely no interest in socializing, being petted, or otherwise playing.

I suspect the target audience for this app is going to be quite small children, who don’t mind that Kitty presents an interaction challenge.

As for this adult, my patience wore thin really quickly.

Love the accordion. Gonna pass on the cat.

Daily iPad App: Kitty originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 07 Oct 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Maybe it’s just me, but I love it when my machines talk to me. If my Mac could read the news when I woke up, tell me the temperature, and so on, wouldn’t it be like a real personal assistant? Well, Tweet Speaker (US$2.99, App Cubby Software) is like your own little robotic reader for your Twitter feed. How does it work? Surprisingly well, with a few quirks inherent to text-to-voice translations.

Tweet Speaker is beautifully designed, with wood grain and a logical layout. The interface is similar to a radio, but instead of a dial you’re looking at a timeline, and you can start “playing” your timeline with a play button to hear the iPhone’s built-in voice read your Twitter streams. Tweet Speaker allows you to pick specific feeds as well, like mentions, or any lists you have set up. You can add multiple accounts and you can change the speed at which the streams are read (the speed of the voice).

While more voices are “coming soon,” the built-in male voice is perfectly usable. Tweet Speaker is smart enough to read the name associated with a Twitter handle, so instead of reading “superpixels” in my case, it would read “Victor Agreda Jr” and so forth. Plus, the app reads RT as “retweet” and manages to interpret a few other common abbreviations and other Twitter quirks (like hashtags). It will also take shortened links and read the headline associated with them, which is most helpful.

There can be some unintentionally hilarious moments with Tweet Speaker, and I’m not just talking about how it reads cursing with aplomb — job is pronounced like the biblical person Job, for example. And the app did crash on me once or twice. Still, hearing “Engadget says…” followed by the latest headlines and links is a lot of fun. It’s also pretty useful if you drive a lot or just can’t look at your screen. With support for Tweet Markers and Airplay, Tweet Speaker actually goes beyond mere novelty and can be a fun, efficient way to listen to your Twitter feeds without having to stare at a screen.

Tweetspeaker is a fun diversion from your everyday Twitter app originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 07 Oct 2011 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While Steve Jobs’s passing came with a lot of powerful emotional effects, it did unfortunately arrive with at least one practical effect that has to be dealt with sooner or later: Apple needs a new Chairman of the Board. A few experts say in this Reuters piece that it will probably be a tough choice for Apple to make. On the one hand, Apple’s strength is in Jobs’ legacy — the company has to be committed to continuing to follow his vision, because that’s what got them where they are today. On the other hand this may be a chance for Apple to diversify its team a bit, and bring in some new personnel who don’t have a past history of politics inside the company.

There’s of course a third option, which is that Apple’s board doesn’t appoint a new chairman for a while, instead working on other priorities before taking on the enormous task of filling Jobs’s spot. That might be the best option — before Jobs took on the Chairman of the Board position as he retired, the company didn’t have one anyway.

Otherwise, Tim Cook’s name is apparently going around as a possible successor, but insiders are saying that as CEO, he’s already too busy to take on anything else. We’ll have to see — these next few months will be critical for Apple, as it tries to turn and face the future without the visionary that has pushed it along for so long.

Apple’s board in a state of transition originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 07 Oct 2011 18:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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U2 lead singer Bono paid tribute to Steve Jobs with kind comments for the man who turned the music industry upside down with the iPod and iTunes. Bono called Jobs “the hardware/software Elvis” and described him as a man who was “only interested in doing truly great things.” Speaking of his influence on music and technology, Bono said, “Jobs changed music, he changed film, he changed the personal computer and turned telephony on its head while he was at it.”

Bono worked closely with Jobs and Apple in the mid-2000s on a U2 iPod with a signature black and red design. The U2 iPod has similar specs to its comparable non-U2 iPod models, but included a download voucher for premium U2 content and the autographs of band members engraved on the back. Apple also released a variety of iPods and an iPad 2 cover under product RED, an African AIDs charity founded in 2006 by U2 front man Bono and Bobby Shriver.

Bono compares Steve Jobs to Elvis originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 07 Oct 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s funny. As the cameras in our iPhones get more spectacular capabilities, more apps are appearing every day to give those beautiful high-resolution photos scratches, tints, and frames that make them look … well, not so nice.

Analog (Realmac Software, US$7.99 introductory price) is another Mac app that lets you change the look of your photos with an assortment of filters and borders. Others that you might want to check out before you make your choice are Flare ($9.99 through the Mac App Store right now or $19.95 on the Iconfactory website) and FX Photo Studio ($9.99).

All of these apps pretty much do the same thing. You open a photo file or drop it onto the app, and you’re presented with a number of preset filters that change texture, blur, saturation, brightness, contrast and tint. There are probably more settings, but I’m just picking a few. Why would you want to do this to a nice, clear digital photo? A lot of photos look good, but seem to lack emotional impact. Adding an effect to a photo often brings back that impact, by reminding people of photos from the past or by adding dramatic coloration.

Of the apps I’ve listed here, Analog is by far the easiest to use. You just drag a photo to the app, drop it on the blank area of the Analog user interface, and then click on a filter or border. A small pop-up shows four icons, which are used to toggle between your original photo and the processed image, crop the image, rotate the image, or share. Sharing can be done a number of ways — saving it to your disk, sending it via email, or saving to CloudApp, Facebook, Flickr, or Picasa.

I ran into an interesting and very repeatable error when dragging photos from iPhoto version 9.1.5 (615) to Analog. Each time I did this, the image ended up with a black square in the middle of it. Once this bug started, any photo coming from either the Finder or iPhoto ended up with a black square in it.

Analog comes with 19 filters (plus “normal”), some of which are quite nice. However, the app lacks the fine control that is included with Flare, where you can actually adjust each filter and setting. Flare even lets you save and share your self-designed filters, and there’s actually a preset library where you can download new presets for free. That means that Flare not only has 31 filters — 11 more than Analog — but you can download well over 50 other effect presets to add to the capabilities of the app.

There are also 13 frames that come with Analog. That’s a bit of a bonus, since Flare doesn’t come with many effects that add a border — although you can add them through the preset editing function.

Realmac needs to add to the number of filters in Analog as soon as possible, and should also consider adding the capability of tweaking the effects so users can create their own. All in all, Analog is an easy-to-use app, but either needs a price cut or more capabilities to compete against some of the existing photo effects apps.

Update: Realmac Software spokesman Nik Fletcher noted that they’re aware of the “black box” bug and are working on a fix. In addition, Realmac is working on adding more filters and upload destinations, and also adding the capability to adjust effects in the future.

Daily Mac App: Analog (Updated) originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 07 Oct 2011 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Esquire’s Elizabeth Gunnison wrote a speculative piece about cafés in Apple Stores. In short, she thinks it’s a great idea. In her piece she writes:

Think about it: Apple’s retail stores are purpose-built for sucking people in and holding them hostage for hours, what with the rows and rows of shiny new devices, the Genius Bar, and their own roster of educational seminars. Why not add a café? Food and beverage margins are nothing compared to what Apple makes off its iPads and Macbooks, but a café would be just one more way of drawing shoppers toward the mothership and keeping them there.

Interestingly enough, Apple itself explored the idea of coffee-centric retail in the 1990s, and then dropped it. It’s not hard to understand why: the concept is clever, but it wouldn’t work. Apple Stores are sleek and sexy and…noisy. When I go to a café, I want free Wi-Fi, sure, but I also want to hear myself think. Even the most crowded Starbucks in London offers at least one corner that’s relatively quiet. And that’s because sales people aren’t constantly pitching the latest product while customers ask question after question.

Apple Stores are sleek, sexy and sterile. Café’s are usually the exact opposite. I want the place where I buy my tech to look like a spaceship. I want the place where I buy my coffee and read the paper to be comfy and cozy, not blindingly white.

If Apple were to add cafés to its retail stores it would require a big redesign. Sure, it could work in some of the bigger stores in London, New York, and Paris if Apple added a dedicated café — one that looked like a café, and not a stand that some bored employee set up with his Nespresso machine. But smaller stores, like the one in Highland Park, Illinois, can’t gut half of their retail space to sell coffee.

As for the idea of cafés as a customer draw…Apple hardly needs that gimmick. It’s having no trouble attracting retail customers. In fact, some people just hang out there, despite the lack of coffee. The last thing Apple Stores need are hipster geeks who aren’t buying anything sticking around even longer checking their Facebook messages on a 27″ iMac while they wait for another refill of their macchiato.

Let Apple sell computers; Starbucks can worry about the coffee.

[photo adapted from work by Roger Price]

I’ll take the MacBook, hold the macchiato: no coffee in Apple Stores, please originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 07 Oct 2011 17:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Time is one of our most valuable assets and it’s a shame to waste it looking for things that are misplaced and forgetting things because the details of your life are out of order. This week’s Five Apps will help you gain control of life and get yourself organized once and for all.

Completion ($2.99)

Completion is a task manager that’s quick and simple to use. It doesn’t overwhelm you with complexity which makes its easy to get your tasks organized and stay committed for the long term. The workflow is simple. You add tasks and assign them to a project like work, personal or household. Each task lets you specify a date, set a priority, add a note, and assign it to a group. You can then use the group, due date and priority information to sort each list of tasks. When you have completed a task, you can delete it forever or mark it as complete which archives it for later retrieval. It has an attractive, colorful interface that makes Completion a pleasure to use.

Pocket Informant ($12.99; $14.99 for HD iPad version)

Pocket Informant is a contact, task and calendaring application for the iPhone and iPad. It’s a productivity app on steroids that supports multiple calendars and syncs to a variety of services including Toodledo and Google calendar. The best part of Pocket Informant is its long list of customizations and settings. If you can see it on the screen, you can likely change its appearance and configure it to your preference. It’s meant for the power user who doesn’t mind spending a few hours tweaking it to his or her liking. Once you get it set up, you’ll have 75% of your life at your fingertips.

Bill Minder for iPhone ($1.99)

BillMinder for iPhone lets you organize your bills by recording payment, amount and due date information. The app has a calendar and a list view that’ll let you see which bills are past due and which are due in the future. If you need some help remembering when each blll is due, you can setup reminders that will alert a set number of days in advance. You can also sync bills between your iOS devices and back your data up to the cloud for retrieval if your phone is lost or stolen. Payment from within the app is made easy by its integration with DebtMinder (also made by the developers behind BillMinder) and Pocket Money.

Billings Touch (Free to try; $15 to unlock via in-app purchase)

Billings Touch is an invoicing and billing app for the freelancer. It’ll let you organize your clients, track the amount of time you spend working on a project and manage invoices. Developed by Marketcircle, Billings Touch works alone as an iPhone app or as a companion to the desktop Billings for Mac app. We took a look at Billings Touch when it first came out. We liked it back then and still like it now. It’s not perfect — you can’t use a custom invoice on the iPhone, but it remains one of the best apps for freelancers who want to keep track of their precious incoming cash flow.

Pocket Money ($4.99 for iPhone and iPad)

Pocket Money is a financial app that’ll help you organize your money. It uses a standard register interface and lets you add accounts like your checking, savings, credit card, and cash. It has all the information you need to record a transaction like category, date, amount, and note. Best of all, it lets you easily sync information between two iOS devices. You can also export transactions to your desktop finance app via Qif files. It’s an excellent app for your basic financial needs.

Five apps to help you stay organized originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 07 Oct 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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