Category: I-phone

Again, hot and fresh deals for you from our friends at DealNews. Be sure to check out the USB-heated fingerless gloves. Especially if you work at the North Pole and use an iPad for the naughty/nice list.

• iTunes Music Store: iPhone App Store Freebies: Orient, Road Hog, ARSoccer, more
• MacUpdate Promo: Mac BlurayRipper Pro for Mac downloads for $10
• PC Connection Express: Pandigital 16″ Touchscreen LCD HDTV / Kitchen Center for $100 + free shipping
• HandHeldItems: HandHeldItems: Up to 93% off iPhone 4 cases + 20% off, $2 credit
• Sony Style: Refurb Sony Multifunction Clock Radio for iPod for $70 + free shipping
• Walmart: LEGO 3MP Digital Camera $46 + free shipping
• Apple Store: Refurb Apple iPad 16GB Wi-Fi for $449 + free shipping, w/ 3G for $579, more
• Meritline: Mediasonic Pro 4-Bay eSATA/USB Hard Drive Enclosure for $96 + free shipping
• iTunes Music Store: iPhone App Price Drops: MiniSquadron, This American Life, iF.E.A.R., more
• Meritline: USB Heated Fingerless Gloves for $4 + free shipping
• TigerDirect: Interion Multifunction Web Mesh High Back Office Chair for $100 + free shipping

Daily Deals for December 1, 2010 originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 01 Dec 2010 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Asa Dotzler has been promoting Mozilla Firefox for more than six years, and he’s not happy about other software vendors installing unwanted plug-ins in his browser. Among the vendors getting under Dotzler’s skin are Apple, Google and Microsoft, each of whom also happen to produce a competing web browser.

Apple, Google and Microsoft are by no means the only companies that install plug-ins to Firefox, but most companies at least ask the user before doing so. Dotzler is concerned about plug-ins like the iTunes Application Detector or Google Update being installed silently in the background without even a prompt. In Dotzler’s view, this behavior is akin to installing a Trojan horse. Although the Firefox evangelist is not accusing Apple and the others of installing anything malicious, just the act of pushing unknown software is troubling.

Since plug-ins and extensions are typically the leading cause of browser instability and crashes, even seemingly benign additions can cause user frustration. While silent plug-ins are doubtlessly annoying, the fact that it can happen is troubling. Instead of accusing other software companies of being evil, perhaps the Firefox developers need to change the code to prevent this from happening in the first place. If Apple or Google can install a plug-in without asking, what’s to prevent a hacker from doing the same and grabbing your private data? Do Safari or Chrome allow silent plug-in installations? If not, then perhaps it’s time to move on from Firefox.

[Via MacStories]

Mozilla evangelist asks Apple, Google and Microsoft to stop installing unwanted plug-ins originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 01 Dec 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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RapidWeaver, the easy-to-use and incredibly powerful website creation tool from Realmac Software, has just been updated to version 5.0. I had a sneak peek at the Mac OS X app earlier this week, and I’d like to share the experience with you.

From what I’ve seen in a few days of working with the application, a lot of RapidWeaver has undergone a complete rewrite. For example, the resource system that manages website resources like PDFs, images and ZIP archives was previously available only for individual pages. Now, they’re available in a sidebar alongside of pages for easy access. It’s a simple drag and drop operation to add resources, whether they’re images, movies or sound files. There’s a QuickLook button for seeing those resources close up as well.

RapidWeaver 5 has new sitemap plug-ins that generate HTML sitemaps for projects, as well as an XML sitemap that details every page in a project. The XML sitemap is submitted to the appropriate search engines when a site is published.

Realmac has added six new themes to the built-in theme library, bringing the total number of included themes up to 47. Of course, there are many more themes available from third-party developers. Realmac has also consolidated themes that are applied to a RapidWeaver project, and those themes can optionally be compressed for faster loading of sites.

Continue reading RapidWeaver 5.0: TUAW exclusive first look and promo code giveaway

RapidWeaver 5.0: TUAW exclusive first look and promo code giveaway originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 01 Dec 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We first looked at 360 Panorama back in July when it debuted against other panoramic photo apps, including Boinx’s You Gotta See This and Debacle Software’s Pano. On sale now for just US$0.99 (regular price $2.99), Occipital’s panorama application has been updated to add what developer Jeff Powers calls “streetview sharing.” This new sharing feature (a “hosted immersive viewing experience”) allows you to upload your panoramas and access them from any web browser, whether that browser supports Flash or not.

When viewed, you can flick and drag to see the panorama from any angle. Follow through the “read more” link to view a sample embedded panorama that I created at a local cemetery, which showcases the hosted interaction. You can easily share your panoramic creations with family, friends, colleagues and clients. All they need is a browser.

Continue reading 360 Panorama brings sharing, simplicity to iPhone pano photos

360 Panorama brings sharing, simplicity to iPhone pano photos originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 01 Dec 2010 10:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When Apple’s mobile iAds launch in Europe this week, one of the companies with a campaign will be French automaker Renault. It’s fitting that Renault will be promoting its new two-seat electric city car, the Twizy, with its iAd since its alliance partner Nissan was the first to use iAds earlier this year to plug the Leaf EV.

Electric vehicles are certainly in the early adopter stage right now, and iPhone and iPad users are generally seen as more willing to try something new. Many of the coming wave of electric vehicles will also be relying on smartphone apps to help drivers find available charging stations and monitor the charging status of their cars.

The new iAd will include content to try and counter some of the perceived myths about electric vehicles, including a calculator that allows users to determine how much they can charge their car while doing various tasks like grocery shopping. Check out a video preview of the iAd in the second part of the story.

Continue reading Renault to launch first European iAd for new Twizy EV

Renault to launch first European iAd for new Twizy EV originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 01 Dec 2010 11:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Flock, the free combo web browser / social networking tool / dessert topping, has been updated on all platforms to version 3.5, but the newest version for Mac OS X has really received a boost.

In the past, Flock for Mac OS X was based on Gecko, the web browser layout engine from Mozilla that powers the Firefox browser. Unfortunately for Mac users, Flock was a bit on the slow side.

Flock 3.5 for Mac OS X has replaced the Gecko engine with the shiny, speedy new Chromium 7 engine, which is based on WebKit. I downloaded the new Mac OS X edition yesterday and it feels much faster than the previous version, although I have no benchmarks to validate that claim.

Flock is unique among web browsers in that it has a scrolling sidebar that contains a constantly-changing flow of updates from your social networks, including Twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn, Flickr, YouTube, and RSS feeds. To log into all of the social networks and services, Flock requires a free account. Once you have logged into the Flock account, all of the updates start to scroll down the sidebar. It’s a great way to keep up with your social networks while browsing or blogging.

[via DownloadSquad]

Flock 3.5 browser for Mac moves to speedy Chromium 7 engine originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 01 Dec 2010 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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According to an email obtained by Bloomberg, JPMorgan Chase & Co will be handing out free iPads to all associates in its global investment banking division (that’s investment bankers for you and me).

In a pilot program to last until May 2011, the bankers will trial the device to see how well it fares as an additional mobile tool as well as being allowed to take advantage of the device for personal use.

“We believe there are real benefits in our working environment that can be realized using this device – as well as the personal productivity and enjoyment that come as part of the package,” said two New York-based JPMorgan managing directors in the email.

The news comes as the BlackBerry trend at Wall Street seems to be shifting more and more towards the iPhone and the iPad. It’s no secret the Apple is pushing hard to expand from its well-established consumer market into the corporate world.

Bloomberg reports that banks including Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse Group AG have recently revealed apps built for the iPad, and that Citi Group and Bank of America are considering the iPhone as an option for their employees.

According to Brian Marshal, an analyst at Gleacher & Co, “Apple represents a clear and present danger for RIM going forward. For the first time you have a viable alternative to secure mobile communications and by and large we see people moving away from the BlackBerry platform in droves in favor of the iPhone and the iPad.”

BlackBerry’s PlayBook, which is being touted as a real competitor to the iPad, is due out next year. RIM has got some serious catching up to do considering Apple’s head start into the tablet-computing world. However, the question is, though the PlayBook seems to fare better against the first generation iPad, will it be able to compete as well with the iPad 2 (rumored for release early next year)? And whether Wall Street’s BlackBerry faithful can hold out until next year for the the PlayBook’s release?

JPMorgan iPad distribution confirmed, says Bloomberg originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 01 Dec 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Back when EA premiered its list of upcoming App Store titles, one stood out for me: Heroes Lore III is now out on the App Store for US$1.99. This one’s interesting — it’s a Korean RPG that’s been translated over to the iPhone. If you’ve ever played any of the old 16-bit Super Nintendo RPGs like Secret of Mana, you’ll know how this one works. You can level up and fight enemies in real time while using various abilities and gearing your way up through a sizable story. There are five classes to play with, and two different factions to fight for, as well as the ability to battle other players along the way.

Early reviews say the controls are a little wonky, so you might end up wrestling with the iPhone’s touchscreen a bit. Some of the classes are a little unbalanced, too. Not all of them work as well as others, so you’ll probably find a few favorites and stick with those. Still, it’s very interesting to see EA bring a game like this to the App Store. If you’re a fan of those old RPGs on the 16-bit systems, you’ll probably enjoy this one. It’s available for just a few bucks right now.

TUAW’s Daily App: Heroes Lore originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 01 Dec 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Have you seen any of those rumors over the years about Apple making a tablet/laptop combo for the masses? Well, it seems that at least part of the rumor has gone and gotten itself a patent.

Calling it a “convertible MacBook-to-iPad-like device,” Patently Apple reports that the patent could be for a MacBook-type device that would convert to something like an iPad in horizontal mode. As a laptop, the screen would be propped open at an angle with a virtual keyboard below it; as a tablet, the screen would slide down on top of the keyboard, enabling multi-touch control directly on the screen itself.

I could see this being a really popular product, specifically among business users and the traveling sect, as it would give them the ability to have both a tablet and a laptop all in one. I would buy one tomorrow if I could — it would be great to have with me through all the traveling I will be doing over the holidays. Sure, iPad docks with built-in keyboards are a great accessory, but unfortunately, they still can’t do everything that I need my MacBook for.

Dell and others have their own version of a hybrid tablet/laptop computer available right now. But Apple doesn’t — and I am sure it wants in on that market. With reports about iOS 4.2 making the iPad a productivity rival for the MacBook Air, and the possibility that the new MacBook Air could be eating into iPad sales, a combination of the two could be a home run for many customers.

Apple patent teases convertible laptop / tablet originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 30 Nov 2010 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We regret to report that Olivier Sanche, Apple’s Director of Global Data Center Operations, passed away on Thanksgiving from a heart attack at the young age of 41. As DataCenterKnowledge notes, Sanche was “a thought leader in data center energy efficiency, and used his expertise to streamline operations at many of the world’s largest technology companies, making a major collective impact on the industry’s carbon output in the process.”

Olivier Sanche was Director of Global Data Center Operations at AT&T before moving on to become Senior Director of Data Centers Services and Strategy at eBay. After eBay, Sanche joined Apple in August 2009 and spearheaded the $1 billion North Carolina data center, which is expected to open by the end of the year.

Mr. Sanche is survived by his wife and daughter. Our deepest condolences go out to his family and friends.

Apple’s Director of Global Data Center Operations passes away at 41 originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 30 Nov 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Here’s an interesting report from Juniper Research. According to their work, mobile app revenues will reportedly grow from the current US $6 billion to a whopping $11 billion by 2015. And the majority of that revenue will come not from the standard download fee, but instead from in-app purchases, according to Juniper. The firm claims that in-app purchase revenue will top one-off download fees by 2013. That seems hard to believe, given my current anecdotal usage, but there’s no question that in-app purchases are growing by leaps and bounds as a form of sizable revenue for app developers.

Jupiter’s report also says that the biggest problem facing mobile app growth is just plain discovery — with so many apps out there, it’s hard for users to find new apps that they like, so what you tend to see is clumps of apps getting popular rather than users going out and finding their own favorites. Services like OpenFeint and Game Center have certainly helped to share information about new apps, and of course sites like ours try to spotlight as many apps as we can. But with a store full of hundreds of thousands of apps in it, it’s tough to let more than a few hundred really shine. Maybe as we move forward, developers and Apple will come up with better solutions to help do that.

Report: In-app purchases to overtake download revenues by 2013 originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 30 Nov 2010 20:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Flurry’s analytics blog has a new post up about the bump that the App Store got last weekend. As I said in last week’s talkcast, app developers have noticed that the holiday shopping season not only brings a slew of new iPod touches and iPhones into the mix (and this year, the iPad as well), but a resultant flood of customers seeking to buy and try out new apps. According to Flurry, new devices jumped on Black Friday by 57%, and total growth over the entire weekend was 31%. App downloads were also big over the weekend, but surprisingly the biggest day of downloads was on Thursday, which would hint that most of the jump in downloads came from sales to already-owned devices, not the devices picked up on Black Friday.

At any rate, there was a lot of money made on the App Store last weekend, and there’s more to come: even more than the Black Friday weekend, app store developers have found that the few days after Christmas are even bigger for app sales, as everyone goes onto iTunes and spends gift cards and buys new apps for the devices found under their Christmas trees. So look for more sales to pop up then, and even higher revenue numbers to appear as well.

Black Friday sees lots of new devices, record app downloads this year originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 30 Nov 2010 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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For those who crave being on the bleeding edge of browser plug-in technology, this is your lucky day — Adobe’s Flash Player 10.2 beta is now downloadable for the Mac, as well as for Windows and Linux machines.

The big advance in this build is preliminary support for Stage Video, the new playback infrastructure that is intended to further reduce Flash’s performance impact while playing back video content. While previous versions of Flash Player 10 leveraged GPU acceleration for video decoding, 10.2 offloads nearly all the video pipeline tasks onto the GPU to alleviate most of the CPU load.

The new version also improves text rendering and, for dual-screen machines, allows full-screen playback on one monitor while allowing you to work on another monitor. Adobe’s full announcement post is here; if you want to download the plug-in, you can get it here and then check out the Stage Video demo clips.

[via CNET MacFixit]

Adobe announces 10.2 beta of Flash Player originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 30 Nov 2010 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’re a fan of Reeder on the iPad and you’re looking for a new RSS client on your Mac, heads up: the first public beta of Reeder for Mac is now available for download. The free testing version is decidedly incomplete — no downloads, no feed management and no search yet, according to developer Sivio Rizzi — but it’s still worth a look.

The feed reader integrates with a slew of third-party services like Instapaper, Twitter and Pinboard, and it maintains the sleek, minimal interface of the iPad and iPhone apps. Everyone’s always looking for the ultimate Google Reader local client, and if you crave simplicity, Reeder may be for you.

Reeder for Mac RSS client reaches beta originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 30 Nov 2010 22:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There is still a big price difference, but the iPad is challenging the Amazon Kindle as a preferred device for reading e-books in ownership and satisfaction.

That’s according to a ChangeWave survey of more than 2,800 U.S. consumers. Of iPad owners, 75% said they were “very satisfied” with their devices, while only 54% of Kindle owners could say the same. When the “somewhat satisfied” numbers are added, it’s a tighter competition, with the iPad scoring 96% and the Kindle getting 92%.

According to ChangeWave’s director of Research, Paul Carton, the iPad has doubled its share of the e-reader market since August and is now within 15% of the Amazon Kindle. ChangeWave says the iPad has 32% of the e-reader market, which is up 16% since August, with the Kindle at a 47% share, down 15% in the same period.

Continue reading Survey: Apple iPad catching up to Kindle

Survey: Apple iPad catching up to Kindle originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 30 Nov 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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