Category: I-phone

NPD’s just published their Q2 2011 Mobile Phone Track service report, which lists the top five selling smartphones in the U.S. for the months of April-June of this year. They are:

1. Apple iPhone 4
2. Apple iPhone 3GS
3. HTC EVO 4G
4. HTC Inspire 4G
5. Samsung INTENSITYII

Many people would correctly assume that the iPhone 4 would be on top, but it’s interesting that Apple’s iPhone 3GS — which launched more than two years ago in June 2009 — is sitting at the #2 spot and outselling more advanced, more powerful, 4G android smartphones.

Sure, the fact that the phone now sells for $49 with a two year AT&T contract (or free if you buy today) can account for some of its popularity, but there are several newer Android handsets that would be on the list if price were the only factor.

The fact that the iPhone 4, which is 14 months old, and the iPhone 3GS still top NPD’s smartphone chart is a testament to Apple’s combined hardware and software ecosystem. When the 26-month old iPhone 3GS is still outselling dual-core 4G Android handsets it suggests that, in a post-PC world, regular consumers care about tech specs less than ease-of-use and good design.

[via SplatF]

iPhone 4, 3GS outsell competition in Q2 says NPD Group originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 22 Aug 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The folks at Evernote rolled out a pretty significant update to its iOS app today that includes rich text support, shared notebooks, a redesigned iPad interface and more.

Andrew Sinkov said on Evernote’s blog that implementing rich text was “a doozy.” Users can stylize text, add highlights and URLs, create headers and make lists. This also involved overhauling a bit of the iPhone app to work in the features. In addition to creating new rich-text messages, existing ones can be edited. However, you still can’t create checkboxes without using the desktop version of Evernote.

The feature I’ve looked forward to most is accessing any notebook that’s shared with you from any iOS device. When the shared notebooks are accessed, they also are stored locally. Users can now search within a particular note as well.

Other additions include:

• Slideshow view that allows viewing of only images attached to a particular note. They can be saved into the iDevice’s camera roll or be copied to the clipboard.
• A redesign of the iPad interface
• Updates to the All Notes view, which now displays notes as snippets.
• Premium Evernote users can add a passcode to the app.

The Evernote update is available now via the App Store.

Evernote iOS app update offers rich text support, shared notebooks, more originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 22 Aug 2011 13:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Deutsche Grammophon and Decca Classics, both part of the Universal Music Group, rolled out iClassics last week, a classical music discovery app that spotlights their catalog. If you love the genre, it’s definitely an app to check out.

The core of iClassics is a drag-and-drop tagging feature that lets you select among criteria such as instrument, genre, mood, period, composer and more to provide recommendations. When a tag is selected, recommendations appear beneath the tag box. Choosing an album brings up previews of each track akin to iTunes. If you want to buy, the app redirects you to iTunes for the purchase. You can share albums with Facebook and Twitter and add them to your favorites.

iClassics also streams music from the Deutsche Grammophon and Decca Classics catalog, and I’ve actually left the app running on my iPad while I do other tasks because I enjoy the music. However, it is on a loop and eventually repeats itself after a couple of hours. There’s an interactive timeline showing composers and giving brief biographies around them.

iClassics is an attractive app with nice extras, and it’s a good way to try some new music without having to navigate the bowels of iTunes. If I’m in the mood to try some new classical pieces, I’ll most likely turn to iClassics for suggestions first.

But, it’s disappointing that the previews are limited to 30 seconds. Not all the albums have every track available for preview like the iTunes version does, so if you’re interested in an album, I suggest hopping to iTunes and listening to the longer previews there.

I’d love to see an app like this as the front-end for NPR Music (which is currently available for the iPhone) or the Library of Congress’ National Jukebox, which launched a few months ago with more than 10,000 recordings from between 1901 and 1925 from the Victor Talking Machine Company.

iClassics is a free download from the App Store.

Daily iPad App: iClassics originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 22 Aug 2011 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Square has released their Square Card Case app today, which allows anyone to open up a tab at a local merchant and pay without having to swipe their credit card. The Square Card Case works by allowing users to enter their credit card details into their Square account.

Once at a local merchant who uses the Square Register app, users can start a tab. When the tab is created, the user’s name will appear on the merchant’s Square device. When the user is ready to check out, the merchant simply touches the user’s name on the Square Register app where the transactions are tallied and paid for using the Card Case user’s credit card on file. Upon completion of a transaction, a digital receipt is sent to the email address on file.

A big plus of using Square Card Case is the ability to pay at local merchants right from your iPhone. However, right now, the Card Case app is only useful if you live in New York City, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Los Angeles or St. Louis. But as more merchants start using Square, the Card Case app is sure to catch on. Square Credit Card users don’t have to worry about any extra fees on their end either. Like using a regular credit card, Square charges the merchant per transaction.

Square today also updated their Square credit card reader app. The update offers improved transaction speeds, no signature required for transactions $25 or less and the ability to enter $0.00 transactions (useful for when the merchant wants to keep track of items, but doesn’t charge for them — like a free bottled water when you buy a hotdog). The Square Card Case app and the Square credit card reader app are free downloads in the App Store.

Square Card Case now available originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 22 Aug 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As expected, Best Buy is having an in-store fire sale today, Monday August 22 only, on the 8 GB iPhone 3GS. The 3GS is available for free which is the perfect price for someone who absolutely wants an iPhone, but doesn’t want to pay up front for a handset.

Be aware that this deal requires a two-year customer agreement with a $325 termination fee and a monthly data charge, so there are some hidden costs associated with this free handset. If you’re not ready to commit to the 3GS for two years, you can always check out Auntie’s advice on finding a low-cost, off-contract iPhone 3GS and pairing it with a cheap PAYG plan with data.

And yes, the 3GS is a two-year old model, but it’s still a worthy handset. It sings along on iOS 4 and can handle iOS 5 just fine. There are some limitations, like no FaceTime support, but it’s perfect for the budget conscious consumer looking to experience the iOS platform with minimal cost.

8 GB iPhone 3GS is free, Monday only at Best Buy originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 22 Aug 2011 12:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple is supposedly adding an Earthquake widget to its Japanese version of iOS 5. The widget will connect to Japan’s earthquake warning system and will alert iPhone owners of an impending natural disaster. The system will tie into iOS 5’s new notification center and give Japanese residents a few extra minutes to prepare for an earthquake and possible Tsunami. The early notification could lower your battery life, but that’s an acceptable trade-off for public and personal safety.

Apple reportedly adds earthquake warning to Japanese iOS originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 22 Aug 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple is experiencing explosive growth in China, overtaking computer manufacturer Lenovo in its home country. Lenovo, though, is not threatened by Apple’s success and notes that the companies are competing in two different markets. CEO Yang Yuanquing said, “Their (Apple) calculation includes the phone business but Lenovo’s main focus is in PCs; our phone business isn’t that strong even in China.”

This is a situation Lenovo hopes to change by introducing a variety of Android and Windows tablets in the coming years. Unlike Apple which targets the high-end market with its US$499 iPad, Lenovo will focus on all tiers of the tablet market. Yang hopes to gain tablet market share by introducing mid and low-range devices that appeal to low-income customers in the smaller cities and townships. “We will be one of the strongest of the players in this area,” Yang reportedly told the Financial Times.

[AllThingsD]

Lenovo: Apple won’t dominate tablets forever originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 22 Aug 2011 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dear Aunt TUAW,

I really like Mail 5‘s shipment tracking feature, but it only seems to look up shipments in USPS. What if I have a package arriving from some other service? Is there a way to change what site Mail looks up for tracking info?

Your loving nephew,

Bob V.

Dear Bob,

Those features that automatically connect to shipment look-up are called data detectors. OS X Mail has built them into Lion, allowing you to track packages sent by UPS, FedEx, and the US Postal Service.

They work like this. When Mail detects shipping information, hovering your cursor over a tracking number produces a dotted outline and a small button with a downward arrow. Click that arrow and choose Track Shipment from the contextual pop-up. Mail opens a QuickLook window populated with your shipping information.

You can enable and disable data detectors by issuing a command-line defaults request, e.g. defaults write com.apple.mail DisableDataDetectors YES, or NO. What you can’t do is change what detectors there are, or add to them.

As far as Auntie can tell, data detectors seem to be built into apps via the underlying programming system rather than specified through defaults. Data detectors are actually quite complicated things. They are based on regular expressions that match the characteristics of the item they are detecting.

Apple provides built-in detectors for tracking numbers, phone numbers, dates, addresses and for URLs. A simple web search for regular expression and, say, phone number shows how deeply complex the problems are — and how little suited they are for end-user expansion.

GummyDev offers an interactive regex checker. Its relatively simple regex for UPS is /\b(1Z ?[0-9A-Z]{3} ?[0-9A-Z]{3} ?[0-9A-Z]{2} ?[0-9A-Z]{4} ?[0-9A-Z]{3} ?[0-9A-Z]|[\dT]\d\d\d ?\d\d\d\d ?\d\d\d)\b/i. If UPS is simple, FedEx is less so. FedEx apparently keeps updating their number system based on their internal corporate structure and the number of packages delivered.

In Apple’s SDK, the NSDataDetector class derives from the NSRegularExpression class and basically works the same way. Class instances can enumerate through matches found in a string and applies property updates based on those matches.

Here’s a quick example of a custom data detector that matches against any occurrence of the string “auntie”, marking it in orange.

So to sum things up, here’s what Auntie has believes is likely going on. (Although if she got any of this wrong, do correct her — as usual — in the comments.)

• As an end-user you can enable or disable all data detectors for mail.
• You cannot add new data detectors, say, for the Canadian postal service.
• Developers can build detectors into their own apps as needed, but these detectors and the regular expressions that power them are not shared between apps.
• Regular expressions can be really, really ugly.

Here’s hoping that helps.

Hugs and kissies,

Auntie T.

Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me expand Mail’s tracking-fu originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 22 Aug 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple now offers a US$69 USB installer for Lion. It comes on one of those tiny white USB sticks we first saw with the MacBook Air. I have not used one of the Lion installers, but I have one that came with my MacBook Air: it’s only 8 GB, and (this is the really disappointing part) it is not rewritable. When you mount the drive in Disk Utility, it appears like a read-only DVD, not a USB drive, which means that the drive which came with my MacBook Air is now just as useless as my Snow Leopard DVD.

I assume that the Lion USB installer is also 8 GB and not rewritable (I haven’t used one personally), which makes it a pretty bad deal. $70 for an 8 GB, read-only USB drive? If you haven’t purchased Lion from the Mac App Store, subtract $30, but that still means you are paying $40 for an 8 GB, read-only USB drive.

For $40 you can buy a 32 GB USB drive from Amazon. Or, if you prefer tiny and easy-to-lose USB drives, you can get an 8 GB Verbatim “Tuff ‘n’ Tiny” drive for $15. Or grab a normal looking 16 GB USB drive for $20 (that’s double the capacity for only $5 more).

But what if you want more than just a Lion installer? What if you want an installer and an emergency backup drive that you can boot from and actually use? What if you want something that will be far more useful than a drive you just stick in a drawer until you need to reinstall OS X?

Slip Streaming Away

For a moment, pretend that Apple had not released Lion yet, and you needed to reinstall Snow Leopard on a Mac, but all you had was an original Snow Leopard DVD from when 10.6.0 was first released. What would you do? Chances are that the process would be something like this:

1. Install Snow Leopard 10.6.0.
2. Run Software Update to download the latest Combo Pack for 10.6 and other important updates.
3. Wait for it to download.
4. Wait for it to install.
5. Wait for it to reboot a few times.
6. Run Software Update again to download the newest iTunes and other updates.
7. Repeat steps 3-5.
8. Reinstall your favorite programs.
9. Try to find the registration information for the apps you purchased somewhere other than the Mac App Store.
10. Try to find the installation discs for Microsoft Office or other programs which on CD/DVD.
11. Start setting up the computer the way that you like it: (move the Dock to the left side pinned to the top, remove all the apps that Apple shoves into the Dock by default, change desktop picture, change a bunch of Finder settings, add my MobileMe information, change the Energy Savings, turn on Remote Login and VNC, and so on.)

Rather than give Apple $70 for an installer which will be out of date in a few weeks, I’d rather make my own installer that includes not only OS X with all the latest updates, but also installs my essential apps and preferences.

This is what is known as a “slipstream” and it’s fairly simple to do. I would definitely recommend at least a 16 GB drive, but 32 GB would obviously make things easier.

DVD installers are dead. Long live USB.

Apple has made it clear that they consider DVD installers to be dead. The MacBook Air and Mac Mini have already dropped the SuperDrive, and the writing is on the wall for the rest of the Mac hardware lineup.

And good riddance. Will anyone miss them? I won’t. For several years the first thing I have done with any CD or DVD installer is make a disk image of it, and use that for installing. Then I don’t have to worry about finding the disc or making sure it didn’t get scratched, or any of that nonsense.

Your Intel-based Mac can boot from a USB drive (heck, it can even boot from the SD card slot, if yours has one). So rather than make a DVD installer, we’re going to make a USB installer. It’s not difficult, and what you end up with is cheaper and better than what Apple will sell you.

1. Buy Lion from the Mac App Store.
2. Download Lion from the Mac App Store.
3. Install Lion onto the USB drive.
4. Boot from the USB drive.
5. run Software Update to make sure you are up to date.
6. Install essential applications, especially ones that you did not purchase from the Mac App Store. (For me, that list includes: Pages, Microsoft Office, LaunchBar, 1Password, TextExpander, BBEdit, BusyCal, SizeUp, QuickCursor, Default Folder X, Keyboard Maestro, Hazel, SlimBatteryMonitor, DropCopy, DiskWarrior, SuperDuper, and Dropbox.)
7. Install your preferred browser and extensions. Customize your browser.

Run each app at least twice. (Why twice? Because some apps wait until the second time you launch them to ask you if you want to automatically check for updates, or prompt you for some other action.) Customize your apps to your normal settings and preferences.

When you are satisfied with the setup (don’t be surprised if it takes a full day to get the computer configured just the way you like it), clone the USB drive to your main computer drive, and boot from it. Now tuck the USB drive into a pocket in your laptop bag.

When OS X 10.7.2 is released, install it on your computer as usual, and use it for a few days to make sure no problems crop up. If it seems stable, insert your USB drive and boot from it. Run Software Update, and then run the essential apps you installed to see which of them need to be updated.

Repeat for each “point oh” release of OS X.

When Mac OS X 10.8 comes out, you will have a “clean but customized” installer ready. If you’ve ever avoided doing a 100% “clean install” because you thought it was too much of a hassle, or if you’ve ever avoided using Migration Assistant because you wanted to avoid bringing over files, preferences, and applications that you don’t use, this is a “third way” which should avoid the worse parts of both and keep the best parts. No more having the fiddle with dozens of basic settings (no translucent menu bars, ever!!!) with a new installation, and no worrying that some installer left random files on your Mac from that one app you tried two years ago.

The USB drive also serves as an emergency drive which you can keep with you in your laptop bag. If you use Disk Warrior or some other disk repair tool which needs to be run off of a separate drive, the USB drive will work for that too.

Drawbacks and Caveats

You may have already noticed a potential drawback to this solution versus Apple’s official installer: if you have multiple Macs, it would be safest to use a different USB drive for each one of them.

What I Did But Am Not Recommending That You Do: I made a USB installer with my 2010 MacBook Air, and the used it to install Lion on my 2008 MacBook Pro. So far I have not seen any problems, but that should not be taken as canonical evidence that any USB installer made on any Mac can be used with any other Mac. In fact, my experience is statistically insignificant considering all the different variations of hardware out there.

I created the USB installer, and then used SuperDuper to create a Disk Image of it. You can do that in Disk Utility, but I used SuperDuper, because it claims to be smart enough to know what Apple recommends not cloning. (CarbonCopyCloner may also do the same thing. I’ve been a satisified SuperDuper user for years, so that’s what I recommend.) I also saved the disk image on my Drobo, so if something ever happens and I need to go back to a “clean install” of 10.7.1, I can do so easily. The MacBook Air is my main computer, so that was the one I wanted to make sure I used for the clone image. If problems crop up later with the MacBook Pro, it will be less of a disruption to wipe that drive and reinstall Lion. If that happens, I’ll buy another USB thumbdrive to use exclusively with it. Your mileage may vary. Caveat Emptor. Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.

This deal is getting worse all the time… (aka “More thoughts on the Apple Lion USB installer”)

If you buy the Lion USB installer and do not buy Lion through the Mac App Store, what happens if you lose the USB installer?

Maybe you thought: “Oh well, no big deal, I’ll just use Lion Recovery.” Wrong! Better re-read the fine print on Apple’s USB Lion installer: “When you install OS X Lion using the USB thumb drive, you will not be able to reinstall OS X Lion from Lion Recovery. You will need to use the USB thumb drive to reinstall OS X Lion.” If you lose the USB drive, prepare to spend another $30 to download Lion from the Mac App Store, or $70 to buy another easy-to-lose, read-only USB installer from Apple.

Look, Apple obviously felt that they had to offer a USB installer, but they clearly don’t like it, and they have done everything possible to dissuade you from using it: they waited a few weeks after Lion was released before releasing it, they made way more expensive than it needs to be, and are making it less useful than downloading Lion from the Mac App Store. You can take a hint, right? This is one of the few times in life when making something is not only cheaper than buying in a store, but it’s much better too.

Build a better Lion installer originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 22 Aug 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Last week BGR reported that testing of an LTE enabled iPhone was underway. Now MacRumors has an article showing proof that there is 4G LTE test code in the iOS 5 developer build.

Source: Apple Testing LTE in iOS 5 and Hiring More LTE Engineers

A few weeks ago I mentioned a build script for easily building OpenCV and a precompiled OpenCV 2.3 binary.  I received some feedback from those having issues using OpenCV 2.3.

Everything worked fine when used on OpenCV 2.2. However, if you tried to use the newer OpenCV 2.3 you ran into build problems due to a naming conflict.  There are also some additional problems when compiling under Lion.  Since quite a few of the newer OpenCV tutorials use OpenCV 2.3+ it’s likely the build you’ll want.

Fortunately, a sample project has been created including OpenCV 2.3.1 precompiled for iOS devices that you can run straight out, and use as a template for OpenCV apps.  You can also take a look at the project and figure out how to get started with OpenCV on iOS.

You can find the sample on Github here:
https://github.com/BloodAxe/opencv-ios-template-project

You can read the full guide over on Computer Vision Talks about the technique used to get around the naming problem here.

A great sample so you can avoid any troubles when you need to use the newer OpenCV 2.3.1 within an app.

©2011 iPhone, iOS 4, iPad SDK Development Tutorial and Programming Tips. All Rights Reserved.

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In the past I’ve mentioned some good tutorials for setting up in-app purchases that detail in the entire process of setting up your application for in-app purchases with Apple, and getting the purchases working within your app.

Since I’ve received some feedback about that older posting recently, I thought I would mention that there is  also an excellent framework that simplifies the entire process allowing you to set up in-app purchases.   Using this framework with just a few lines of code you can support in-app purchases within your apps.

What is great about this framework is that the developer has worked hard to keep it up to date.   The most recent version allows you to define purchases using a .PLIST file, and supports auto-renewable subscriptions.

The framework is MKStoreKit from Mugunth Kumar which can be found on Github here with documentation:
https://github.com/MugunthKumar/MKStoreKit

Furthermore, step-by-step guides for using the latest version of framework can be found on Mugunth’s website here and here.

This should help out those having issues with the previously mentioned in-app purchase tutorials.

Also, if you have checked out MKStoreKit in the past you might want to check out the recent upgrades.

©2011 iPhone, iOS 4, iPad SDK Development Tutorial and Programming Tips. All Rights Reserved.

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PhoneGap is an HTML5 app that allow you to author native applications with web technologies and get access to APIs. We need to installed PhoneGap in Xcode 4. For that follow the below requirment:

1. Installed PhoneGap 1.0.0 form here

2. Close the Xcode before you download the PhoneGap.

My Last post you can find out from here TextScroll

Step 1: Open the Xcode, Create a new project using PhoneGap based application. Give the application “iPhoneGap”(See the figure 1).

Figure 1

Step 2: Xcode automatically creates the directory structure and adds essential frameworks to it. You can explore the directory structure to check out the content of the directory (Image should be figure2).

Figure 2

Step 3: If  you compile and  run the application, you got the error in the simulator “ERROR: Start page at www/index.html was not found”.

Step 4: Select the Project and open it to the finder (See the figure 3). You can find out  www folder (See figure 4).

Figure 3

Figure 4

Step 5: Drag the www folder in the project, but make sure you select the “Create folder references foe any added folders (See figure 5).

Figure 5

Step 6: Now compile and run the application on the Simulator.

Figure 6

You can Download SourceCode from here

iPhoneGap

Today we presents a collection of Adobe Illustrator tutorials.

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iBlast Moki was one of the most strangely named, and yet most popular apps way back in the early days of the App Store. It had you blasting little characters called Moki around the stages, offering up cute, physics based gameplay even before, if I recall correctly, those birds got so angry. Now, developers Godzilab are back with iBlast Moki 2, and man have they made something amazing here.

The biggest innovation in this one is “sticky bombs,” which will splatter gel all over whatever you put them on, and allow your little Moki to sprint, stick, or jump whenever they touch the paint. If that sounds Portal-esque, it definitely is: While you’re taught all of the abilities carefully and one at a time, eventually you’re combining them to do all sorts of crazy stunts. And each bomb needs to be timed out to work as well, so very often you’re experimenting, making a tweak, and then trying again, and it’s all designed so beautifully that it’s fun the whole time.

Even after you finish the game’s 90 levels, you can go back and try for the full solutions, or you can spend in-app purchased “Moki Coins” to share and see your friends’ solutions to the stages. Or you can even create and share levels online, which serves as a really impressive LittleBigPlanet-style experience which will give the game tons of user-created content and replayability. iBlast Moki 2 is really incredible in all kinds of ways — the basic version is on sale right now for just 99 cents, and the universal HD version is on sale for $2.99. Especially at those prices, iBlast Moki 2 is one of the best games available on iOS.

Daily iPhone App: iBlast Moki 2 originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 22 Aug 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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