Category: I-phone

AT&T said it was not concerned about the Verizon iPhone and its Q2 2011 earnings suggest this confidence was not misplaced. In the last three months, AT&T activated 3.6 million iPhones and 24% of these activations were for new customers, not renewals. iPhone subscriber churn was down slightly, suggesting there was no mass exodus of AT&T iPhone owners to Verizon.

Similar to other carriers, AT&T is experiencing a smartphone explosion. AT&T sold 5.6 million smartphones, a 43% year over year increase. The iPhone accounts for about 60% of this growing number, while the remaining 40% include BlackBerry, Android and Windows Phone devices. AT&T reportedly activated two million Android handsets last quarter, a number this respectable but not high enough to topple leader Apple. AT&T’s postpaid business was the main beneficiary of this growing interest in smartphones. Almost 70% of its postpaid sales are now smartphones, not feature phones.

On the Apple side of the coin, AT&T accounted for almost 18% of Apple’s Q3 2011 iPhone sales. The Cupertino company confirmed earlier this week that it shipped 20 million iPhone units last quarter and 3.6 million of these phones landed in the hands of AT&T customers.

[Via ZDNet’s Between the Lines]

AT&T activated 3.6 M iPhones in Q2 2011 originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 21 Jul 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While it waits for its huge mothership office complex to be built, Apple still needs more office space for its expanding employee roll. To that end, the company has leased an office complex in Cupertino that’s capable of housing around 1,300 additional workers, according to Mercury News.

The nine building complex is just the latest Cupertino expansion by Apple, and local realty agents are now saying that Apple’s demand for office space is starting to exceed local availability, with Cupertino “pretty much out of space” according to one agent.

All of Silicon Valley is in the same boat, with real estate expansions by Google, Facebook, and other tech giants gobbling up office parks as soon as the for sale signs go up in the front window. Once Apple finishes construction of its futuristic, 13,000-employee office park, it’ll be interesting to see if the company retains the lease on its new satellite campus.

Apple leases Cupertino office campus for another 1000+ workers originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 21 Jul 2011 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I’ve been using an AirStash (US$99.99) for about a week and have grown to like it very much. This tidy little device stores movies, music, documents and photos for portable, wireless sharing between iPhones and iPads. It allows you to stream those files via its own Wi-Fi network and share with colleagues, family and so on, all while saving space on your iDevices. In my experience it was easy to use and even passed the “keep my kids entertained during long road trip” test, which is crucial. Here’s my look at the AirStash for iPhone and iPad.

Design

At 1.9 inches wide (47.8 mm) and 3.6 inches tall (92.0 mm) the AirStash is smaller than an iPhone 4. At the top is a single USB plug, which can be covered with a snap-on cap when not in use.

A single power button/indicator light (more on that later in this post) can be found on the front while an SD card slot is on the bottom. It weighs next to nothing at 1.5 ounces and will occupy just about any pocket without a problem. Plus, the construction feels solid enough that you needn’t worry about the bumps and bruises it might incur during a typical day.

I do have two design complaints. First, I couldn’t figure out how to turn the AirStash off. The solution is to press and hold the power button for several seconds. I tried 2-3 seconds, but 5-7 seconds are required.

My other complaint is that the SD card could be easier to remove. Once inserted, only a sliver protrudes from the AirStash. Those with fingernails will extract it with no problem, while the rest of us will wish for an eject button. Many users will leave the SD card alone once in place, but I’ll describe a scenario later in this post that requires frequent card-swapping. For now, let’s discuss adding files to the AirStash.

Use – Adding Files

Think of the AirStash as a USB card reader with benefits. Once you’ve added an SD card (up to 32 GB), plug the device into your Mac’s USB port and it’ll show up on the desktop. From there, treat it as you would any other USB flash drive. Create folders, add files, etc. Easy! I made folders for documents, movies, photos and podcasts. From there, all I had to do was drag-and-drop my stuff. It works well with Lion, too.

Speaking of “stuff,” what’s supported? The short answer is, quite a bit. A partial list includes popular image formats (like .jpg and .gif) and document types from Word, Excel, Numbers, Pages and Keynote. You can also add AAC, MP3, MP3 VBR, Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV files plus H.264 video (up to 1.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels).

Movies and music purchased from the iTunes store can be streamed from an AirStash with a few caveats. The short version is this: iTunes Plus files will stream w/no problems. Movies and TV shows purchased with DRM in place can be streamed as long as the account used to purchase the file is the same account that linked to the device. Also, the AirStash FAQ notes that you may have to sync your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch with iTunes to get this to work (not to sync the file, just to perform the sync), but that wasn’t my experience. Finally, rented movies will not stream at all with an AirStash. You’ll find more information on the AirStash and iTunes DRM here.

Use – Viewing Files

Earlier I called the AirStash a USB card reader with “benefits.” That benefit is wireless media streaming, and it works very well indeed. To get started, you’ll need the free, universal AirStash app. Once that’s installed, press the AirStash’s power button. A green indicator light flashes, indicating that it’s created a network and is ready to share.

Next, open the Settings app on your device and select Wi-Fi. You’ll see the AirStash network on the list of those available. Tap it to join and then close Settings. Finally, launch the AirStash app.

Right away you’ll see the folders you created on the SD card when the AirStash was connected to your Mac. Tap any one to navigate, and then tap any file you’d like to view. For example, I opened up a PDF. The app has its own built-in viewer, which presents the file. You can scroll and zoom as you’d expect. There’s a share button at the top of the page with options like the “Open in..” button, print and “Open in Dropbox.”

The movies feature works extremely well. I had a copy of Jumper to play with. It started streaming right away, and offered to pick up where I left off on subsequent viewings. It will also stream two movies to two different devices (and probably more, but I only tested two). This was super handy during that road trip I mentioned. Each of my kids could watch his/her own movie in the car; movies I didn’t have to load onto my storage-challenged iPhone and iPad. We used our demo unit to steam movies for 5 hours before the battery finally died.

In fact, that’s where this device really shines for me. Imagine a road trip with this thing in the glove box, serving media to the gang…music, movies, etc. Everyone gets what they want and there’s only a single device to sync before departure.

Of course, there are business applications as well. Bring documents or presentations with you and share via a private network of associates. WEP encryption is available. Simply connect, open the AirAtash app, hit settings and then select a password.

Another fun trick is rapid, on-the-spot photo transfer. Here’s how to do it.

1. Pop the SD card out of your camera and into the AirStash.
2. Connect with your device and open up a photo.
3. Tap the camera icon at the bottom of the screen.
4. You’ll see options to import that photo or the entire directory of photos right your device’s camera roll.

That’s pretty cool, especially when you’re away and everyone is shooting photos. Best of all, the AirStash is upgradeable and firmware updates are easy to apply.

Conclusion

The AirStash is a nice product. It allows you to have a portable library of up to 32 GB of documents on your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch without using any of said devices’ internal storage. Sharing with family or co-workers is easy and the thing is small and sturdy enough to handle everyday wear and tear. I can whole-heartedly recommend it for road trips (you’ll get about 5 hours out of the battery in my experience) and imagine it’ll serve business users well.

TUAW policy is to return or donate all hardware provided for review. For more details, see our policy page.

AirStash provides wireless, portable documents for iPhone and iPad originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 21 Jul 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Reckless Getaway is a fun little arcade/physics stunt racer from Polarbit and Pixelbite that’s been climbing the App Store charts recently. The premise is that you’re in a getaway chase from a crime, but rather than just escaping, your goal is to cause as much chaos and collect as high as score as possible. There are coins to guide your route, but the real scoring comes in creating major pileups and really finding solid routes through the game’s 16 different maps.

Things can get crazy, and there’s a little bit of track learning involved (there are quite a few dead ends that you’ll only figure out when you’ve played a certain track more than once), but the game is fun to control and the physics are very entertaining. Each level has a star rating to chase after, and Game Center is included for leaderboards and achievements.

Polarbit promises more content in the future, and even some new game modes to play with as well, so that’ll be exciting to see. But even right now, Reckless Getaway is a fun cops vs. robbers jaunt, available as a universal version for US $2.99 in the App Store right now.

TUAW’s Daily iPhone App: Reckless Getaway originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 21 Jul 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I’ve previously mentioned the excellent SpriteHelper and LevelHelper tools.   These tools work with Cocos2d, Cocos2D X, and Corona SDK games and allow to quickly add graphics design levels, and physics to your games with drag-and-drop and parameter selection.

Together these tools are a very powerful combination, and save an incredible amount of time – while being pretty inexpensive.  You can build your own games very quickly.  I’ve always liked, but then run into issues whenever using drag’n’drop game dev tools.  What I love about these tools is that you get the ease of development, but can still do whatever you want in code.

Recently Vladu Bogdan, creator of the tools recently added a couple of excellent tutorials on how to build complete games.

Marin Todorov has also created an easy to follow guide for beginners working with SpriteHelper and Level Helper working with Cocos2D.

You can find Vladu’s extensive complete game tutorials on building a run’n’gun game here:
Full Game Tutorial – Corona SDK
Full Game Tutorial – Cocos2d

You can find Marin’s tutorial here:
How To Quickly Create Physics Levels For Your Games

If you’ve been trying to get the most out of these tools these tutorials should definitely help you get started.

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

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There are quite a few free graphic resources available for games.

Unfortunately the quality varies greatly, and if you do try and go the free graphics route you’ll probably wind up doing a lot of digging to find images that look good together.  All this takes time, and could leave you wondering why you didn’t just find an artist in the first place.

I found some great looking free game graphics sets made to suit iOS devices so you won’t have to do any tinkering (unless you want to). So if you are looking to put together some graphics for a tutorial, or demonstration or even your own games these are fantastic.  What I really like about these resources is that you get a complete set.

The graphics resources are provided by Vicki Wenderlich and can be found here:
Free Game Art: Mole Whack 
Free Game Art: Cat Jump Pack
Free Game Art: Space Flier
Free Art: Four Spaceships
Free Game Art: Monkey Platformer
Free Game Art: Squirrel Attack – Catapult Game

They are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License so you just need to provide some credit somewhere in your app.  You can find details under any of the links.

Extremely useful if you want to get something out their fast!

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

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This is the very simple application. In this application we will see how to image move using touch. So let see how it will work. My previous post you can find out from here ImageView Display

Step 1 : Open the Xcode, Create a new project using View Base application. Give the application “Touch_Image”.

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.

Step 3: We need add also two resource in the project.

Step 4: In the Touch_ImageViewController.h file, make the following changes.

Step 5: Double click the Touch_ImageViewController.xib file and open it to the interface builder. First select the view and bring up Attribute Inspector and change the background color. Drag the label from the library and place it to the view window. Select the label and bring up Attributes Inspector and the text to “Touch Anywhere” . Now drag the ImageView from the library and place it to the view window. Select the Image View from the view and bring up Attribute Inspector and select the litchi-big.png image. Connect File’s Owner icon to the image view and select image. Now save the .xib file, save it and go back to the Xcode.

Step 6: Open the Touch_ImageViewController.m file and make the following changes:

Step 7: Now compile and run the application on the Simulator.

You can Download SourceCode from here Touch_Image

It’s been a while since I released Tutorial 14 and I’ve had some very nice as well as some not so nice requests to keep them coming and to know when tutorial 15 will be released. For this reason I wanted to post about where I am with tutorials and my current plans for the […]

If you have a lot of older programs hanging around on your Mac, chances are some of them may not work correctly (or at all) after upgrading to OS X Lion. Most programs put out in the last few years should at least launch in Lion, though it may be some time before they run well. However, there is a certain older class of application that won’t even open anymore once you install OS X Lion: PowerPC-only apps. Before upgrading to Lion, it’s important to know if you have any of these apps still hanging around, because they’ll be useless piles of ones and zeros afterward.

In 2009, Mac OS X Snow Leopard moved to Intel-only hardware and dropped legacy support for PowerPC Macs. Wisely (for the time), Apple kept support for PowerPC software as an option for Mac users running Snow Leopard. The PPC-enabling code translation technology, Rosetta, was an optional install for users who still needed the ability to turn PowerPC instructions into something the newer Intel processors could execute.

It’s been six years since the announcement of the PowerPC to Intel transition, and with OS X Lion Apple has basically said, “Enough is enough,” and relegated Rosetta to the software dustbin. In fact, one of the reasons Lion is a smaller install than Snow Leopard is the absence of all that PPC compatibility code in system libraries (which were shipping as ‘fat binaries‘ before, and are now slimmed down to Intel-only).

The upshot for Apple is that’s a lot less legacy code to worry about — and unlike Microsoft’s traditional approach, Apple is all about ditching backward compatibility for both hardware and software in the name of progress and streamlining. For a certain subset of users who are still running legacy PowerPC programs, however, it means transitioning to Lion may be inconvenient at best and financially ruinous at worst.

Retro Techs has a list of software that won’t run on Lion anymore because of its PPC-free pedigree, and there are some pretty big (though to be fair, pretty old) names on it. Adobe CS2 and earlier are dead programs walking in OS X Lion, which is why I said upgrading might be financially ruinous for some users — updating to the latest version of Creative Suite can be defined as “cheap” only if you’re one to complain about having to tool around town in your BMW because your Jag is in the shop. Quicken for Mac won’t run on Lion either, and there really isn’t a one-size-fits-all alternative to the program.

Microsoft Office 2004 and earlier won’t work under Lion, and neither will AppleWorks (remember him? Ha). Fortunately, Apple’s iWork suite is a powerful (and inexpensive) alternative to both software suites.

Unfortunately, if you had some classic games like Starcraft and Diablo II still hanging out on your Mac, you’re out of luck under Lion. If running classic games like those are critical to your “workflow,” you might be best served by tracking down Windows versions of them (and a version of Windows) and running them in Boot Camp or in a virtual PC. If that sounds like a huge pain (it certainly does to me), you might be better off keeping an older Mac around with Snow Leopard running on it so you can still run PowerPC apps, or if you’re geekily inclined you can partition the hard drive on your current Mac and dual boot into Snow Leopard (unless you’re buying a new mini or MacBook Air that ships with Lion — they won’t boot 10.6). Partitioning and running Snow Leopard on another partition will also work for applications like Office 2004, but the question to “Is it worth the effort to do that?” is almost certainly going to be “No.”

The easiest way to tell if you’re still running any PowerPC applications on your Mac is to select “About this Mac” from the Apple menu, then go into System Profiler (now known as “System Information” in Lion, accessible by clicking on “System Report…”) and check out the “Applications” list in the sidebar under “Software.” Sort this list by “Kind” and take note of any apps you find that say “PowerPC” — those apps won’t run in Lion. Anything that says “Intel” or “Universal” is good to go.

Alas, poor MarbleBlast, I knew him well…

If you’ve been using Macs since OS 9 (in other words, for years and years and years), you might see another kind of app described as “Classic.” Those apps haven’t been executable on a PowerPC Mac since Mac OS X Leopard (10.5) and have never run on Intel Macs anyway, so chances are you found alternatives for those apps around four or five years ago.

Hopefully all that made sense. One thing worth asking yourself is whether the advantages of upgrading to Lion outweigh the disadvantages of discontinued support for your legacy programs. If you find yourself in a situation where you’re financially dependent on Adobe CS2, Office 2004, Quicken 2007, or Starcraft (it could happen), then you may want to keep Snow Leopard as your OS of choice.

Mac 101: How to tell if an older app will run on OS X Lion originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 21 Jul 2011 06:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The young guys over at HaiTeq have been running into issues with Launchpad updating after installing software that wasn’t bought on the Mac App Store. Because of this, they’ve figured out a workaround to force Launchpad to refresh its data base.

Removing the database files from the user’s Dock application support folder and restarting the Dock allows Mission Control and the Launchpad to re-build the database from scratch, updating the presentation with all the new applications.

Here are HaiTeq’s steps, with a few modifications on my part for safety. Admittedly, if you are not comfortable at the command line, this is not the hack for you.

1. Launch Terminal (from /Applications/Utilities/Terminal).
2. Navigate to the Application Support folder in question (cd ~/Library/Application\ Support/Dock)
3. Open the folder (open .) and drag all the .db files to the trash.
4. Restart Dock (sudo killall Dock, followed by authentication)

I am not a Launchpad/Mission Control user and cannot verify these steps will reflect newly installed software. However, I did test them out for safety, and my Lion install is still working; my db file was instantly re-generated, and I did not find any harmful side-effects.

Please share your experiences in the comments.

How to refresh OS X Lion’s Launchpad contents originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 21 Jul 2011 03:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ralph Perdomo reports that he has ported OS X Front Row to Lion by moving several frameworks and the application itself from his old Snow Leopard install. He wrote up the procedure over on his weblog and has provided an optional installer for anyone who didn’t keep a Snow Leopard install around.

Perdomo reports that the re-installed application seems to work well, and he does not seem to have run into conflicts from what I can tell. The frameworks/app in question are:

• /System/Library/CoreServices/Front Row.app
• /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/BackRow.framework
• /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/iPhotoAccess.framework
• /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.RemoteUI.plist
• /Applications/Front Row.app

TUAW has not had a chance to test this hack out, but we applaud Perdomo for his creativity in the face of OS upgrades.

How to install Front Row on Lion originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 21 Jul 2011 00:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Thanks to the patent system, the tech market is looking more like Parker Brothers’ “Monopoly” game every day. According to Bloomberg, Apple and Google are two of the companies reportedly interested in purchasing mobile tech designer InterDigital for its 1,300 patents related to information transfer.

Google recently lost a bid for Nortel’s patent portfolio, a bid that Apple, Microsoft, and other companies won. InterDigital’s patents are supposedly “deeper and stronger” than Nortel’s, however, which makes it a keen target for the major players in the mobile industry.

It’s kind of sad that we’ve reached the point where every time a tech company passes “Go” in Silicon Valley, they have to sweat over landing on someone’s patented hotel space and cough up billions of dollars if they want to keep playing. Since that’s apparently how the game is played these days, though, it’ll be interesting to see who winds up with InterDigital’s US$3.1 billion portfolio after the bidding is over.

Apple and Google may be in a bidding war over InterDigital patents originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 20 Jul 2011 23:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple announced last week that it would begin offering volume purchasing for iOS apps, and a week later the program is open for enrollment (but still U.S.-only, unfortunately). Enrolling in the program requires that you be authorized to make purchases for your company, and you’ll also need a valid D-U-N-S number.

Volume purchasing allows businesses an alternative to the App Store for bulk purchases of iOS apps. All paid apps in the App Store are available through the program, at the same price as that listed in the App Store. Note that Apple’s guide to the program doesn’t mention anything about discounts for bulk app purchases, so purchasing Keynote for all 50 of your employees is going to run you close to US$500.

Custom B2B apps are also offered, allowing a level of customization and privacy not offered through the traditional App Store purchasing route. The program also simplifies bulk distribution of iOS apps, allowing distribution of purchased apps’ redemption codes via email, an internal website, or third-party Mobile Device Management.

There doesn’t appear to be any cost to enroll in the program, and it seems to be pretty close to addressing most of the features businesses interested in volume purchasing have been asking for since not long after the App Store’s debut.

Apple launches B2B store for volume App Store purchases originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 20 Jul 2011 22:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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First, make sure you’ve updated your 10.6 system before installing Lion — there’s a Migration Assistant update.

While you wait for the download, here’s where to see your progress.

If you wanted to do a clean install, Macworld has some info. If you want to make an installer disc, here’s info on that.

Once Lion is installed:

If you find Apple’s Natural Scrolling is melting your brain’s muscle memory, here’s how to turn it off.

Learn more about Launchpad.

Find out how to see your drive’s capacity in Finder again.

Get the scoop on revamped Mail.

Learn how to use and customize Mission Control.

Full Screen apps have some hits and misses.

Some gripes about Lion, and some workarounds.

How Lion handles saving, and the new Versions implementation.

Lion and Time Machine, plus info on locked documents.

Lion Server is the least expensive OS X Server ever, and it’s easier to setup than ever before.

All our Lion tips in one convenient place originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 20 Jul 2011 17:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In the hustle and the bustle today, we failed to note a minor detail in Apple’s Lion press announcement, but MacRumors picked it up:

Users who do not have broadband access at home, work or school can download Lion at Apple retail stores and later this August, Lion will be made available on a USB thumb drive through the Apple Store(R) (www.apple.com) for $69 (US).

So much for the absence of physical media. The option to download at an Apple Store is nice (either bring your Mac, or bring a drive with enough free space to carry Lion home); the USB install media will be equally nice, and very welcome for those supporting multiple machines with touchy ISP connectivity. It’s an extra $40, but them’s the breaks.

Lion will ship on USB drives in August originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 20 Jul 2011 17:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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