Category: I-phone

The mothership campus Steve Jobs envisions for Cupertino is not the first statement headquarters he has pursued. Back in 1983, Jobs eyed Coyote Valley, San Jose for a world-class campus.

Former San Jose mayor Tom McEnery tells the story of a meeting he had with a young Steve Jobs. Jobs saw the Coyote Valley location from a helicopter and selected the grassy property for Apple’s next home. Soon the property belonged to Apple, and a rough draft of the plans was sketched on a piece of paper. Jobs hired well-known architect I.M. Pei to build the campus and preserve the pastoral quality of the land.

Unfortunately, politics and the economy hindered Jobs’ dream. This location was one of San Jose’s last undeveloped parcels of land, and its repurposing was the topic of hot debate.

At the same time, the economy went belly up and Jobs was removed from the company. McEnery tried to re-kindle interest in the Apple campus with CEO John Sculley, but the idea fizzled and Apple eventually sold the property.

[Via MacObserver]

Steve Jobs conceived of “statement HQ” for Apple in 1983 originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 14 Jun 2011 12:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple may settle a trademark lawsuit with iCloud Communications according to patent and trademark lawyer Brad Salai of Harter Secrest & Emery law firm. Apple was slapped with a trademark infringement lawsuit following its big iCloud announcement at WWDC last week. The company, iCloud Communications LLC, claims part of its business focuses on cloud computing, and Apple’s new service is confusingly similar.

It’s an interesting lawsuit from a legal standpoint. Apple has filed 11 applications for the iCloud trademark and purchased the right to an existing trademark as well as the domain iCloud.com from Xcerion.

A USPTO database search suggests iCloud Communications has not registered for the iCloud trademark. It also uses geticloud.com for its domain. The Arizona company will have to argue that it has a common law right to use the trademark.

In Salai’s opinion, Apple will likely settle a small lawsuit to get iCloud Communications out of the way. If the Arizona company pushes for a large monetary settlement that prevents Apple from using the iCloud name, the Cupertino company will take its chances in court.

[Via The Loop]

Apple may settle iCloud trademark lawsuit says legal expert originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 14 Jun 2011 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A report from Taiwan’s Economic Daily newspaper claims Apple is preparing to ship 380,000 new MacBook Air units along with 80,000 old models this month. The report cites industry sources with knowledge of Apple’s production plans. This echoes an earlier report from Wall Street analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

For good measure, the same article also claims Apple is working on an iPad 3 with a high-resolution display that is six times higher than the iPad’s current display. This latter claim is unlikely to happen as that is a huge jump in display technology. Earlier rumors hint at a high-resolution display iPad, but the specs will probably fall closer to the 2560 x 1600 tablet display recently announced by Samsung.

New MacBook Air models to arrive late June? originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 14 Jun 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Steve Jobs’ official biography comes out next March, but those who don’t want to wait that long to read about iSteve can grab a comic book biography from Bluewater Productions.

The 32-page comic book Steve Jobs: Co-Founder of Apple highlights the important moments in the life and career of Steve Jobs. For better or worse. The book will examine Jobs both as a “visionary and a genius” and an “egomaniac and a corporate pirate.”

It’s available for pre-order now from Amazon for US$3.99 and can be picked up your local comic book store when it launches this coming August. It’ll also be available online from Barnes & Noble and Borders.

Bluewater may be name familiar to some as it is well-known for its comic book biographies. In the past, the publishing company has covered Lady Gaga, Angelina Jolie, Sarah Palin and, most recently, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.

Steve Jobs’ comic book bio coming to stores in August originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 14 Jun 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hercules – Curse of the Hydra isn’t exactly the most polished game I’ve seen on the iPhone — it’s a little clumsy, in fact, with some awkwardly placed controls and graphics that aren’t quite as smooth as they could be. But it’s still an interesting title and a solid effort from an indie studio, and I like its ambitious nature. There are 16 different levels of platforming and 3D action to fight through here, and while the game is still a little rough, it’s cool to see a small studio take on a full title like this on iOS.

Unfortunately, there’s no Game Center integration, but there’s a nice progression scheme to explore, which should keep you charging through the action and the storyline. There’s a free version of the game to try out (and I actually recommend you give it a shot before you buy the full game, just to see if it’s your thing). The full version is US$3.99 on the App Store right now, and I think it’s worth supporting this studio, called Smerc. There are a lot of little pick-up-and-play puzzle games out on the store, but I like to see someone trying to tackle an experience that’s a little bigger than that.

TUAW’s Daily iPhone App: Hercules – Curse of the Hydra originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 14 Jun 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Chillingo held its E3 demo this year in the same area as EA, which makes sense considering that EA outright purchased it last October. The publisher of Angry Birds and Cut the Rope has a very impressive stable of titles due in the next few months, and I got to both see and play with them at E3. I’ve got some quick descriptions on these future Chillingo releases, including cute platformer Roll in the Hole, Draw Race 2, and an artsy little puzzler called Contre Jour.

Continue reading Chillingo shows off new titles at E3

Chillingo shows off new titles at E3 originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 14 Jun 2011 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I met up with Halfbrick Studios again last week at E3 here in Los Angeles (while most of you were watching the goings-on at WWDC in San Francisco). I got to play an updated version of Machine Gun Jetpack, the latest game in progress from the developers of Fruit Ninja and Monster Dash. I saw this game at GDC earlier this year, but it’s improved greatly since then, with a lot of placeholder graphics and music replaced with the real thing.

In Machine Gun Jetpack you’re playing as Barry Steakfries, running down a long corridor for as long as you can with a jetpack strapped to your back. Honestly, I wasn’t that good at the game (yet), but I did get to see all of the special vehicles you can spawn. These included the big cyborg mech and the teleporting jetpack from last time around, plus a flying bird suit and a gravity suit that lets you switch from the top of the screen to the bottom at will.

Continue reading Halfbrick’s Machine Gun Jetpack updated at E3

Halfbrick’s Machine Gun Jetpack updated at E3 originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 14 Jun 2011 06:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Since Steve Jobs unveiled iCloud at WWDC, many current MobileMe subscribers and potential iCloud users have wondered what will happen to the current web-based offerings for contacts, calendars, email and so forth. Josh Topolsky of This is my next claims that Apple PR has confirmed the current web-based interface will go away, replaced entirely by iCloud’s new services.

Topolsky’s point is that since Steve Jobs said nothing about iCloud having a browser-based interface option at WWDC, it means such an option will never exist. He also has confirmed that Apple’s PR folk told him straight up that there will not be web access to calendar, email and contacts.

However, as Daring Fireball’s John Gruber notes, “there is no reason to assume that iCloud as it will exist 12 months from now will be limited to what was announced one week ago.” Considering we’re more than a year away from MobileMe’s permanent expiration date, that’s a pretty big leap to make, even with the direct comment from Apple — and it’s one that’s unsupported by evidence a MacRumors reader dug up.

According to MacRumors, a reader sent a calendar reminder to himself via iOS 5 and was able to view it on iCloud.com in his browser. Except for minor differences in branding, the iCloud interface was nearly identical to MobileMe’s existing browser-based interface. If Apple were indeed planning on doing away with the web interface once iCloud launches, it seems odd for it to offer the service during beta testing (with the iCloud branding, no less).

While Steve Jobs has allegedly confirmed that iWeb and iWeb-based site hosting will be discontinued, multiple sources have seen evidence in both OS X Lion and iOS 5 that iDisk (or something similar) will still exist when iCloud launches. Additionally, the makings for a “Find My Mac” service have been seen in OS X Lion, and if such a service weren’t accessible from a browser-based interface it would be all but useless.

Those who have speculated that Apple will discontinue its web-based MobileMe offerings once iCloud launches have yet to provide a compelling reason why Apple would do so. The potential advantage of simplifying device-data syncing would be more than offset by the very real disadvantage of never being able to access your data from any device other than those you’ve already registered with iCloud. Apple has to be smart enough to know that current MobileMe users occasionally have to access their data from computers other than their own, and locking iCloud users out from doing the same thing would be a huge misstep.

Yes, I believe there will be iCloud web apps. What shape they’ll take remains to be seen, but even if Apple simply swaps the MobileMe branding out for iCloud and keeps the existing MobileMe codebase for the browser-based interface, that should be more than enough for most people’s needs if they’re trying to access iCloud from someone else’s device.

Yes, there will be iCloud web apps originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 14 Jun 2011 05:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Update: The unlocked iPhone 4 actually slipped out a day early, and is now available through the Apple Store. As mentioned below, this is a GSM model only. Also, we’ve answered many common questions in our unlocked iPhone FAQ.

While we were skeptical about the rumors that came up over the weekend, both MacRumors and 9to5 Mac now confirm that unlocked versions of the iPhone 4 have arrived in Apple’s retail outlets and will go on sale starting Wednesday. The 16 GB iPhone 4 will cost US$649, while the 32 GB model will retail for $749. These prices are higher than U.S. buyers might be used to seeing for the iPhone because they’re handset-only prices, independent of any carrier contract. Note that this concerns only the GSM model; the CDMA/Verizon model is expected to remain Verizon-only for now.

Like most other mobile phones in the U.S., the iPhone has been locked to a specific carrier since its introduction. Before the Verizon iPhone debuted, AT&T was the sole carrier choice for American iPhone owners unless they were willing to jailbreak for the privilege of using the iPhone on an alternate carrier. The iPhone’s carrier lock in the U.S. also means that, unlike international users who can swap out SIMs at will, American iPhone owners who travel internationally must pay exorbitant international roaming fees.

As the GSM model iPhone 4 will now be available without an AT&T contract, users who choose to pay the high initial cost for the iPhone will find themselves with a few advantages — not being chained to AT&T for two years has to be the biggest one. However, given that the only other major GSM carrier in the States is T-Mobile, whose 3G network is incompatible with the iPhone 4, the ability to swap between national networks at will is not as big of an advantage as it may seem at first. The real winners will be international travelers, who will finally be able to swap SIMs and pay lower fees when they’re abroad.

This may be a boon to international buyers, as well. Unlocked versions of the iPhone 4 retail for significantly higher than the above-quoted prices in most countries. For example, a contract-free 32 GB iPhone 4 is available in New Zealand for NZ$1328 (US$1084), significantly more expensive than the U.S. price even after taking GST into account. Buying an iPhone from the U.S. has been out of the question for most international purchasers due to the AT&T carrier lock, but if the iPhone 4 and subsequent models will be available unlocked, I know of at least one person who will be taking full advantage of the lower U.S. pricing when the iPhone 5 comes out.

Unlocked iPhone 4 available for $649 in US (Updated) originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 14 Jun 2011 03:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nokia issued a press release this morning stating that it has reached an agreement with Apple that includes the settlement of all patent litigation between the companies. This includes a one-time payment from Apple and ongoing royalties. The specific contract terms are confidential.

Apple had won a round in the patent fight with Nokia in March when the International Trade Commission found that Apple wasn’t violating five Nokia patents. Apple had also filed suit against Nokia, and a judgment in that case was expected this month. The dispute between the two companies goes all the way back to 2009 and involved a variety of suits and countersuits, including alleged infringement on GSM and wireless LAN patents, claims of stolen technology and more.

The full press release can be read below.

Nokia enters patent license agreement with Apple originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 14 Jun 2011 01:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple has begun selling factory unlocked iPhone 4 GSM model in the United states. An unlock iPhone can be used on any supported carrier and offers all the features without a commitment. If you don’t…

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You can have 20 million users download you freemium application, but if only 2 of them spend more than 30 seconds in your app you have a problem! This week we will look at ways to prepare for defining a tutorial and putting in place the framework to effectively optimize your tutorial over time.

Don’t fly blind, analytics is essential

There are multiple ways to optimize the performance of your tutorials but it will be next to impossible without proper analytics in place. There are many “off the shelf” solutions available for tracking metrics such as Apsalar and Flurry. Developers can also take advantage by building their own.  One size/solution does not fit all and it can be somewhat overwhelming when first attempting to secure effective means of data collection. However, if there is one word to the wise it would be this: The more data you have available the more insight you can capture. Make sure you are tracking users behaviors by device ID’s or other unique, non-personally identifiable sources. It’s essential to be able to track user segments and allow for effective cohort analysis.

What to track?

The sky is the limit to what to track and when, but I would suggest prioritizing the material you look to analysis. Here are a few prioritized suggestions:

1)      Find the gaps – Track the funnel and identify any major pain point users are having. If users are making it through steps 1-3 but sharply dropping off at step 4, you know where you need to look for optimization.

2)      Find the positive – See where users are effectively progressing and determine how you might be able to apply the user experience to other parts of the game

3)      Track behavior outside of the tutorial – It’s important to analyze the behaviors of users who choose to exit the tutorial or turn away from the initial “suggested” gameplay progression. See if stricter rules need to be put in place to force user education. Or you might find that users do just fine without your help!

4)      Track user segments – Not all users are the same. Compare the behaviors of users based on the following criteria

1. Source – Where did they come from?
2. Device – iPhone vs iPad?
3. Territory – UK vs US?
4. Relative App Info – What other apps do they have?
5. Time and date acquired – 4pm on Tuesday or 2am on a Saturday?
6. Events Comparisons – If user X gets through level Y, they are Z% more likely to convert to a paid user

Solving the problems

Next week we will speak to specific strategies on how to review your data and take meaningful steps to test your theories based on collected data.

Do you have a question about freemium gaming or a topic you’d like us to explore? Let us know in the comments or catch us on twitter @rechargestudios or @w3i.

Matt Tubergen heads Recharge Studios, a wholly owned subsidiary of W3i that invests in the development and marketing/distribution of freemium mobile games.  W3i is a market leader in distributing and monetizing apps with over 500 million apps distributed for W3i clients. Recharge Studios is actively seeking new investment opportunities, if you have a great idea for a game contact us.

Freemium Game Blogs are published in partnership with the series on W3i’s corporate blog.

Some time ago I mentioned the excellent tool for creating spritesheets and generating usable physics code from your sprites known as SpriteHelper.  I really liked how the author paid attention to all the little details within the application.

LevelHelper is another excellent tool from Vladu Bogdan allowing you to easily create levels for your games complete with physics working directly with sprite sheets taken from SpriteHelper.  Beyond simply placing the titles for levels you can specify the physical properties of the elements, and add physics joints to elements within the scene.

You simply drag and drop the elements, change a few parameters and generate the code.  The application generates either Cocos2D or Corona SDK code.

Here’s a video showing how it works:

You can find the application here:
LevelHelper In The App Store

Azam Sharp has created a step-by-step tutorial on using LevelHelper and SpriteHelper together that you may want to check out if interested:
Tutorial Game With LevelHelper And SpriteHelper

Looks like a great tool for those creating physics/level based games.

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

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A common question that I’ve seen asked is how to place a UITableView within a UIAlertView. You see this all over the place such as in Apple’s own Wifi selection, or when you hit “more apps” in many different apps.

The process of getting this workign and looking right is somewhat tedious, but fortunately Simon Blommegård has created an open source library allowing you to do this simply and easily — it also looks great. You can even get multiple selections working if desired.

Here’s a screenshot of the library in action:

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

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Despite the fact that an iPhone is capable of holding a ridiculous amount of music, it’s fairly easy to grow tired of your selection of tunes. Fortunately, the App Store has never been short on ways to discover new and interesting music.

Today we’ll step away from major players like Pandora and Last.fm and take a look at a few gems that you’ve likely never tried. Each of these apps has its own unique spin on music discovery and they’re all completely free to download and use.

The Kollection

The Kollection

If you’re sick of hearing the same fifty songs played on repeat on your local radio stations, then it might be time to explore some the indie music scene. It turns out you don’t have to wear thrift store clothing or even shun society to appreciate unsigned artists!

If you genuinely want to discover new and interesting music from artists that you’ve likely never heard before, Kollection is a good place to start. Instead of a Pandora-like experience where you flow from one song to another with little to no control, Kollection offers you a fresh selection of music to choose from that’s updated daily. You browse the day’s collection freely and can choose exactly what you do and don’t want to listen to. It’s a bit like finding someone else’s iPod.

The music selection is organized into four genres: hip hop/rap, dubstep, electro, and indie. The selection definitely leans towards the quirky so don’t be surprised if you hate everything you hear, but you just might find the change refreshing. It’s not all original either, you’ll find some unique remixes in there from artists like Nirvana and Madonna.

The interface looks great but I found the various menus and social features a little confusing. A quick in-app tutorial showing what it’s all for would go a long way.

Price: Free
Download: iTunes Link
Developer: The Kollection

8Tracks

8Tracks

8Tracks is a web service and iPhone app that presents itself as a more social alternative to Pandora. Don’t let that description fool you though, it’s actually a very different service.

8Tracks is basically a playlist sharing service. As a listener, you browse through popular mixes created by other users, each with their own preview image (usually something quite random) and a brief description. The interesting part is that, aside from the description, there’s really no way to tell what’s inside the playlist aside from just listening to it.

The music selection seems to be a decent mix of popular and non-mainstream artists. Listen for a few hours and you’re sure to come across tons of music you’ve never heard.

The interface is fairly simple and attractive. There are ads on several screens to support the free service but they’re fairly minimal and don’t detract from the experience too much. You can download the app and listen to music without signing up for an account but you definitely get to take advantage of much more functionality if you take a second to grab a free account.

Price: Free
Download: iTunes Link
Developer: 8tracks Inc.

Hitlantis

Hitlantis

Hitlantis is a rather bizarre music discovery service that uses a unique visualization of a sea of bubbles to help you navigate the various available artists. The color-coded bubbles tell you the genre of the artist and you can easily toggle any genre on or off in your stream.

The app looks pretty cool and makes it fun to zoom around and tap on random bubbles to hear songs. You can either navigate the sea manually or throw on the radio feature so hear random selections. The radio features an odd single button play/pause/next/previous control scheme that took me a good thirty seconds to figure out but seems pretty natural after you realize how it works.

With Hitlantis I definitely found that the interface, despite being fun at first, really made the content seem difficult to navigate. I had a particularly difficult time finding something that I thought sounded decent and wasn’t able to find any popular artists.

Price: Free
Download: iTunes Link
Developer: Cognitive Maps Ltd

AudioVroom

AudioVroom

Out of all the apps in this list, AudioVroom was definitely the most like typical music discovery apps such as Pandora and Last.fm. The interface is pretty different, utilizing bright colors and a somewhat cluttered layout, but otherwise the concept behind the service is familiar.

The app takes a look at your music library and makes some logical assumptions about the type of music that you like. It then builds you a custom radio station to listen to based on that music. Alternatively, you can simply type in an artist to hear others that are similar (sound familiar?).

The app gives you three buttons to rate the music that you’re listening to: love, wtf? and fail. Like most of these types of services, you can only skip a few songs each hour so make sure you’re not too picky. There’s also an interesting points system that requires you to rate songs if you want to keep listening. I haven’t quite decided yet whether that’s good or simply annoying.

AudioVroom was definitely the only app here that consistently played music that I liked and had heard before. This can be good or bad depending on what you’re looking for. If you want an app that’s going to give you truly unique content that’s different from what you’re used to hearing, the other three might be a better bet. However, if you’re more into mainstream artists, this is definitely an app that you should check out.

Price: Free
Download: AudioVroom
Developer: SocialGenius, Inc.

Conclusion

Today we brought you four fresh and interesting ways to discover new music on your iPhone: The Kollection gives you a daily dose of handpicked artist-submitted music that is both fairly obscure and surprisingly good. 8Tracks allows you to browse and create brief playlists that contain both mainstream hits and indie jams. Hitlantis is a completely unique music discovery solution that will have you tapping on colored bubbles and sifting through a really interesting mix of artists. Finally, AudioVroom takes the more traditional personalized Internet radio approach and closely mirrors Pandora in both its approach and content.

Once again, all four of these apps are completely free so go download them and let us know what you think in the comment section below. Also be sure to mention any apps that you’ve found to be particularly great for discovering new music!