A patent uncovered by AppleInsider suggests Apple may be improving the I/O ports on its desktop and notebook Mac computers. The approved patent describes several design changes that make the USB or Thunderbolt ports slimmer and more aesthetically pleasing. The bulky shell enclosing could be removed and replaced with a single, seamless material that expands dynamically to fit the cable. The port could also be crafted so it matches the color and texture of a computer giving the sides and back of the machine a smooth profile.

The patent also describes an improved manufacturing process that would eliminate any imperfections in the current port design. In a stand I/O port, finger contacts extend to meet the cable and form an electrical connection. The stamping process to create these fingers often leaves sharp edges that wear down the connection prematurely. Apple’s patent would eliminate these burrs and increase the lifespan of both the cable and the computer port. This design would also give a satisfying click to let users know when their plug is seated properly.

Apple plans to make Thunderbolt, USB ports thinner, more durable originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 05 May 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’ve ever felt the urge to chest-bump a stranger or dance the cha-cha on a city street, you’re probably a fan of the antics of Improv Everywhere.

The NYC-based ‘prank collective’ executes missions large and small, defying the expectations of passerby with group freezes, flash musicals and the occasional Imperial arrest on a subway. Of course, for most of us the logistical and artistic challenge of creating a surreal and transgressive experience for ourselves and others is… well… just too much darn work.

Now, thanks to the efforts of artist Lauren McCarthy, there’s Inneract. This free app lets you post your location and your desired interaction so that other users of the app can find you and do unto you as you would have them. Want to create a drum circle? Splash in a public fountain? Have a tickle battle? If you can imagine it, you can put it into Inneract and let the world fulfill your wildest need for novelty. See the video below for some relatively staid examples.

Sure, we could point out all the ways this concept could go very, very wrong. We could ponder the possibility that an evil companion might put your picture into the app along with a rather personal request, and then sit next to you to watch the fun. We could suggest some ideas for in-app purchases ($0.99 to enable Fight Club Mode, “I want someone to come over and kick my ass”), or muse on the irony of a location-based app that exposes your deepest fetish to everyone around you. Instead, though, we’ll let this app stand as today’s truly wacky No Comment.

Thanks to Wilson for the tip.

Continue reading No Comment: Inneract provides antidote to restrictive social norms

No Comment: Inneract provides antidote to restrictive social norms originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 05 May 2011 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The free i.TV app for iPhone has been providing program guide and show information for TV addicts since October of 2008, and it’s been improving steadily since then. With version 3, now available on the App Store, the app has gone universal and provides a full-screen iPad experience for browsing schedules, shows and TV-related news.

The main i.TV interface has been overhauled (clearing up some of the issues we noted previously), and now defaults to Shows mode; you can select from top programs, search and sift through a comprehensive list, or assign favorites for quick access. Tapping on a show gives you a rundown of the most recent episodes, details about upcoming airings, links to news and IMDb/Wikipedia entries on the show — in other words, more info than you could possibly need. You can also set your TiVo DVR to record the show right from your iPhone or iPad. All the same features are available from the program grid if you want to see what’s on now or at a future time.

There’s more action in the ‘Where to Watch’ section; if you want to buy episodes from iTunes, watch them on TV or add DVDs to your Netflix queue, all are a tap away. Version 3 adds Hulu to the watching options, so if you’re a Hulu Plus subscriber you can launch the Hulu iPad app directly from i.TV and start watching many shows in moments.

In the v3 rebuild, some features of previous versions have dropped out. The app’s Facebook and Twitter integration is being redesigned; although you can use your Facebook credentials to authenticate, you can’t share show info on the social networks at the moment. The ability in earlier versions to control a Roku remote is also gone in v3, and that apparently will not be coming back.

If you’re looking for an attractive and capable iPhone or iPad program guide, give i.TV a spin; if you’re a TiVo owner, you definitely want to have it on your device.

i.TV extends to the iPad, adds Hulu integration originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 05 May 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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English tabloid newspaper the Daily Mail is reporting that employees working for Foxconn, assembler of many Apple products, are being forced to sign pledges not to commit suicide. The report from the tabloid paper points to an investigation conducted by the Centre for Research on Multinational Companies and Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (Sacom). Sacom claims it uncovered “appalling” working conditions at the Foxconn factory that include excessive overtime and public humiliation.

While the Daily Mail cites the Sacom study as evidence of abysmal working conditions at Foxconn, the Sacom report investigates factory conditions across China — not just Foxconn — and, in fact, congratulates Foxconn as being the only employer to pledge to meet government limits on overtime.

The anti-suicide letters seem to have been first published on the Shangaiist website, where there’s some discussion on the exact translation of the supposed leaked Foxconn employee letter. The contentious, final paragraph states:

“In the event of non-accidental injuries (including suicide, self mutilation, etc.), I agree that the company has acted properly in accordance with relevant laws and regulations, and will not sue the company, bring excessive demands, take drastic actions that would damage the company’s reputation or cause trouble that would hurt normal operations.”

But what Shangaiist author Elaine Chow translates as “will not sue the company,” others translate as “will not make demands outside of law and regulation.”

In fact, this anti-suicide pact that new workers are asked to sign seems to point them towards sources of help should they have problems, including a trade union hotline — not quite the dismal picture painted by the Daily Mail.

[Via Slashdot]

Foxconn employees asked to sign ‘no suicide’ pledge originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 05 May 2011 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Back in the mists of history — probably the late ’90s or early ’00s — I remember reading a blog post. I’m afraid I have been unable to find it again, so you’ll have to take my reminiscing on faith (but please leave a comment if you know what I’m talking about). This post dissected and analyzed a collection of freshly granted IBM patents which, taken together, painted a picture of the future of personal computing that has stayed with me ever since.

In essence, they called for each person to be carrying around a personal “computing core” — a device we’d recognize today as a modern smartphone, although it was close to science fiction back then — that could be docked into a variety of shells to become other devices, such as a laptop or a desktop. While Apple’s PowerBook Duo subnotebooks were designed to transform into desktop computers when docked with their base units, they didn’t quite meet the ‘computing core’ definition

I was reminded of this recently when reading Anandtech’s review of the clumsily-named Asus Eee Pad Transformer TF101. If you’re unfamiliar with it, the Eee Pad looks, at first glance, like Yet Another Identikit Android Tablet, as it has very similar specs to the rest of them — Android Honeycomb software, dual core NVidia Tegra 2 system-on-a-chip processor, 1 GB RAM and so forth.

The Asus, however, has two key things in its favor. Firstly, for the baseline Wi-Fi/16 GB configuration, it’s $100 cheaper than the iPad. Secondly, it works with a $150 laptop dock accessory that turns it into a netbook.

Continue reading Docks, transformers, computing cores and taking it all with you

Docks, transformers, computing cores and taking it all with you originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 05 May 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Late last year, the developer who created popular indie game Canabalt released the game’s source code under an MIT open source license. This license lets other developers use the underlying game engine to power their own games for either private or commercial distribution. While the underlying engine is free to use, the Canabalt developer clearly states other developers cannot “distribute or redistribute our game code, art or sounds.”

Unfortunately, PLD Soft may have violated this open source license by taking the source code, repackaging it with minimal changes and submitting it to the App Store as an app called Free Running. Apple approved this Canabalt clone, and it is now available for free.

While it may prevent the entry of harmful and poorly written applications into the App Store, Apple’s approval process is not perfect. Just last week, a Mario clone made its way into the App Store, and now we see the debut of a Canabalt clone. The Mario clone had a limited lifespan and was pulled promptly from the App Store, we will wait and see if Free Running meets the same fate.

[Via Daniel Wood (@loadedwino)]

Apple approves Canabalt clone originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 05 May 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Smule has brought its popular iPad app, Magic Piano, over to the iPhone and iPod touch this week, and one of the best things about it is that it’s completely free. It still features all of the various music modes that the original app offers, including that one cats like so much, and the mode that allows you to play any number of famous songs just by tapping the screen on your own rhythm and time. This is a great app, which isn’t a surprise from the fine folks at Smule, and it’s good to finally have it available on the smaller iOS devices.

The company is making its money through in-app purchases. While there are quite a few songs available when you download the app, you can buy more in packs, and there are even more coming out every single week. But it’s nice to have the main app as a free download anyway.

Whether you have enjoyed the app on iPad or haven’t been able to see it yet, Magic Piano is a great one to pick up for free. It’s a little bit of a shame that this wasn’t made into a universal version, just to keep things a little more organized in iTunes’ apps section, but the price should quiet any complaints about that. Go grab it right now.

TUAW’s Daily iOS App: Magic Piano originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 05 May 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Seems like everything’s going 3D these days. Thanks a lot, James Cameron. Now even Intel’s getting in on the act, but in a manner that sounds like it has more useful applications than the latest Sony TVs or Nintendo’s 3DS. As a bonus, you also don’t have to wear any goofy-looking glasses. The New York Times reports Intel has developed a technology called Finfet (or fin field-effect transistor) that will allow Intel to manufacture three-dimensional CPUs.

Until now, the conductive area of the transistors used in CPUs has been two-dimensional, which means that in order to pack a higher number of transistors within the same space, the transistors had to shrink to smaller sizes. Over the years, manufacturing tolerances have traditionally been the limiting factor in how small a transistor can get, but these CPU building blocks are now approaching a size where physics itself becomes a barrier to making them any smaller.

Intel’s Finfet aims to work around this problem by building “fins” into the transistor structure, making the transistor’s conductive area three-dimensional. Intel expects chips using this design to be 37 percent faster than current low-voltage chips while consuming half the power.

Not all chipmakers are convinced that going 3D is the right solution, and a few of them are taking a “wait and see” approach to Intel’s Finfet technology. Intel plans to start producing chips using Finfet later this year, but there’s obviously no indication yet when or even if chips using Finfet will find their way into future Macs. Intel’s also admitted that the consumer “ecosystem” isn’t a favorable market for Intel today, which may mean the chipmaker has its eye on crafting a Finfet-based competitor (or replacement) for Apple’s A-series chips used in iOS devices.

Intel going 3D for future CPUs originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 05 May 2011 06:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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One major complaint about iOS thus far has been the inability to apply software updates over the air. If you want to move from iOS 4.3.2 to 4.3.3, you have to download the appropriate update through iTunes, or via direct download, assuming you can find the links, plug your iOS device into your Mac or PC, and apply the software update using iTunes.

It’s a bit of a backward process in an era when iPhones and iPads are looking more like portable computers in their own right with each new iteration. But according to 9to5Mac’s sources, after iOS 5 this will be a thing of the past. While iOS 5 itself won’t be available over the air, following “point” upgrades (i.e., iOS 5.1) will. This means that like competing devices using Android or webOS, once you receive a notification on your device of a new OS update being available, you could download and install that update from the device itself rather than using iTunes as a go-between.

If true, this will be welcome news for iPad users particularly. Wireless carriers may not be so thrilled, however. iOS updates are usually well north of 500 MB, and if a few hundred thousand iPhone owners in markets like New York City or San Francisco all start downloading a big update at once, that’s going to cripple the network very quickly. That may be why Verizon is thus far the only carrier that’s been “confirmed” (by those always-reliable “sources”) to be discussing over the air updates with Apple. Alternatively, Apple might be working out a way to reduce the size of iOS “point” updates by offering smaller “delta” updaters like it does with Mac OS X.

iOS 5 may offer over-the-air software updates originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 05 May 2011 01:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple has issued several updates for Thunderbolt-equipped iMacs and MacBook Pros. The updates include:

Mac OS X v10.6.7 Update for iMac (Early 2011) — includes general OS fixes and improved Thunderbolt device support. 382.56 MB.

iMac EFI Update 1.6 — includes fixes that improve performance and stability for Thunderbolt. 6.1 MB.

MacBook Pro EFI Update 2.1 — includes fixes that resolve an issue with Turbo Mode in Boot Camp and improve performance and stability for graphics and Thunderbolt. 3.06 MB.

MacBook Pro Software Update 1.4 — includes fixes that improve graphics stability, address issues with external display support and 3D performance and improve Thunderbolt device support. 132.69 MB.

You can download the individual updates by clicking the links above or run Software Update on your Thunderbolt-equipped iMac or MacBook Pro.

Apple issues EFI and Thunderbolt updates for new iMacs, MacBook Pros originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 05 May 2011 00:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple pushes iOS firmware updates via iTunes to its iOS devices. Users need to plug their iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch in via USB, hit the Update button, and then the new iOS update is downloaded and flashed/installed. But this may change in iOS 5 which is rumored to bring OTA (Over-The-Air) iOS updates for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch.

Most of the current smartphone competitors have long offered the painless over-the-air firmware/software updates. A new software update notification appears on the phone screen and user can install that update right on their phone. No computer needed.

9to5mac reports that Apple also wants to introduce over-the-air iOS updates convenience, starting this fall. As per their source, iOS 5 will bring OTA updates feature for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch and then future iOS updates will be pushed OTA.

The iOS-based AppleTV has been able to update itself without iTunes intervention so the hooks are obviously in iOS. Two things to note:

1. Updates are now over 600MB. Apple would have to make these smaller to get the carriers to agree to push these things as they are. We believe that Apple will make the updates much smaller by using incremental patches rather than full OS downloads
2. iTunes provides the backup to the iOS device so a failed update would need some sort of backup. We think there will be a Cloud-based backup system.

Apple has promised to unveil iOS 5 at WWDC 2011. Just wait one more month to know if OTA iOS updates is one of the iOS 5 features.

You can follow us on Twitter, Google Buzz, Facebook, and Subscribed to RSS Feed to receive latest updates.

Apple has pushed iOS 4.2.8 for Verizon iPhone 4 (CDMA). You can download iOS 4.2.8 for Verizon iPhone 4. GSM iPhone 4 users can download iOS 4.3.3. Both the iOS 4.2.8 and 4.3.3 bring fix for the iOS location tracking bug.

How to Restore iOS 4.2.8

*** iOS 4.2.8 requires iTunes 10.2.2

Connect your Verizon iPhone 4 to iTunes 10.2.2, firmware 4.2.8 availability message will appear then hit the “Download and Install” [Mac OS X] or  “Download and Update” [Windows] button to install iOS 4.2.8. (Not a recommended way for jailbreakers and unlockers)

You can also download iOS 4.2.8 firmware from the link below. Hold down the Shift (Windows) or Alt/Option (Mac) key and hit the restore button on iTunes and select the downloaded IPSW file.

iOS 4.3 was released on March 10, iOS 4.3.1 on March 25th, and iOS 4.3.2 on April 14 this year.

Download iOS 4.2.8

Direct link to download iOS 4.2.8 firmware (IPSW files) links for Verizon iPhone 4:

• 4.2.8 for Verizon iPhone 4
• Download iTunes 10.2.2

You can follow us on Twitter, Google Buzz, Facebook, and Subscribed to RSS Feed to receive latest updates.

Also checkout:

• Downgrade iOS 4.3.3
• Jailbreak iPhone 4, 3GS 4.3.3 with RedSn0w 0.9.6rc14

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.

In this series, we’ve been examining the elements needed to accurately calculate the lifetime value of a freemium gamer.  We explored the methods to calculate both Revenue per Daily Active User (RPDAU) and Retention which allows us to calculate the average daily active user (ADAU).

To review, RPDAU is how much money you are making divided by your daily active users, while retention is a key metric that speaks to how many users stick with your app day to day after initially being acquired.

One million downloads, 5 million downloads, 10 million sessions, thousands and thousands in virtual goods. Whoopee!  All the metrics that draw headlines don’t do much to your bottom-line if you’re missing the foundation. When you start thinking freemium gaming, you must think in terms of lifetime value for each acquired user.

Revenue

Revenue, for the sake of simplicity can be viewed as the

average daily active user (ADAU) x revenue per daily user (RPDAU) for day 1 + day2 . . .etc.

Lifetime value

Now, to calculate the estimated lifetime value one must project out future retention (or attrition) rates for a minimum of 90 days. Do your best to look at the existing data you have to draw a picture on what your existing data represents, if you have 7 days of data that points to a steady attrition rate of 10% after day 7, don’t assume that the following days will be 2%. After you have projected your long tail attrition rate you can start to calculate total revenues and LTV based on known RPDAU.  Once you have projected your 90 day retention rates, you can calculate total revenue from projected RPDAU per day for the next 90 days.

To represent this model in a calculation, one might use the following below:

(ADAU _{Day 1} + RPDAU_{Day 1}) + (ADAU _{Day 2} +RPDAU _{Day 2}) +  . . . carried through the life of users in total days. In this example, we recommend using 90 days.

The grid below is a sample based on the calculation above lifetime Revenue per user based on 90 day period.

Several times in the past i have mentioned the excellent, open source, tiled map editor.  The tiled map editor utilizes the .TMX format which is supported directly by the Cocos2D game engine, and in the Corona SDK using the Lime add-on.  It’s also mentioned in the Learn iOS Game Programming book which shows you how to use Tiled Maps within your own game engine.

Recently an iPad app has been released known as iTileMaps which supports saving to the .TMX format.  The app is not free ($9.99), but editing maps on your iPad is just plain cool.

You can check out the iTilemaps homepage here.

[via Learn Cocos2D]

 

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

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An excellent tutorial has been released by Ray Wenderlich detailing how to create a multiplayer game using Game Center.  In the tutorial Ray creates a game using the Cocos2D game engine, and demonstrates how to add in some essential features for multiplayer gaming using the Game Center API.

The tutorial covers authentication, matchmaking, invites, and more along with a complete sample project containing all the code.

You can find the tutorials on Ray’s website here:
Multiplayer Game Tutorial 1/2
Multiplayer Game Tutorial 2/2

If you have been looking for a straightforward guide/sample code for game center this looks like a great resource.

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

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