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Being the geek that I am, I always have time to annoy my wife by checking into venues with Foursquare whenever we go somewhere. The free location-based social networking iPhone app gained even more awesomeness (their description, not mine) today with the release of version 2.0.

What’s new? A to-do list for organizing your explorations. You can search for a location, and then add it to your to-do list. This would be handy for reminding yourself about restaurants that friends have tipped you off to. To-dos can also be added via websites, if they embed the button on their page (think Instapaper for location-based to-dos).

Another new feature is that friends, tips, and to-do items can now be displayed on a map, nice for figuring out where you were planning on going, where your friends have gone off to, and what you were going to do when you got there. This feature ought to be popular with aging Americans like myself.

The venue pages have also been updated, with large, easily-found links for the current mayor’s profile, any tips that have been left, and a one-tap button for calling a venue.

The mini-gallery below features some screenshots from version 2 of Foursquare. Enjoy!

TUAWFoursquare app gets a version bump originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 20 Sep 2010 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Looking forward to that new iPhone 4 in Saudi Arabia, Qatar or Yemen? If the preview pages on the various international editions of Apple.com are any guide, you may be missing a key new feature. A Facebook thread from SaudiMac points out that the website graphics for all those countries, plus several others in the Middle East, have lost their FaceTime graphic. You can see the before & after versions of the Saudi site above.

This adjustment to the product sites — just ahead of the anticipated late September launch of the phone in these countries — may represent merely a cosmetic tweak, keeping the cultural sensitivities of these largely Islamic countries in mind. Or it might mean the feature itself is going to be blocked for iPhone users there; note that it’s not just the image that’s changed, the current versions of the iPhone pages omit the description of FaceTime as well. We don’t know yet, and although we have an email in to Apple’s media relations team for comment, chances are we won’t hear anything official.

If you’ve got a line to an Apple reseller or cellphone carrier in one of the FaceTime-redacted locales, please send us a quick heads-up.

Thanks Khaled

TUAWFaceTime goes missing in Saudi Arabia, much of Middle East originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 20 Sep 2010 18:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This is pretty fantastic. Dave Girouard, president of Google Enterprise, announced via the Google official blog today that mobile editing for Google Docs is coming to the iPad and Android. Up until now, the Webkit browsers used on the mobile devices have been missing a key capability for handling rich text editing.

While you can access Google Docs through iPad office suites such as Documents to Go and Quickoffice, native access through Google will eliminate the need to purchase a 3rd party app and may make an iPad sound more appealing to those who want to use it to edit documents. It may prompt Apple to finally add cloud storage access to iWork.

[hat tip to Electronista]

TUAWGoogle Docs editing coming to iPad originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 20 Sep 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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TUAWApple releases Security Update 2010-006 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 20 Sep 2010 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I’ve been playing NimbleBit’s freemium Pocket Frogs game since it was released last week, and apparently I’m not the only one — Ian Marsh tells TUAW that the game has been downloaded by half a million people so far. The company is also seeing 200K daily active users, and while Marsh couldn’t share exact stats on how many people have taken advantage of the game’s in-app purchases, he estimates that 3-4% of the active users have bought stamps or potions in the game.

Over on Twitter, he says that the 99 cent charges are the most common, making up half of the total purchases. But the $29.99 optional charges make up 8% of the purchases, and actually contribute to 49% of total revenue. In other words, just a few people are responsible for half of the game’s total revenue — the freemium model hard at work.

Marsh says that NimbleBit is working on updating the game, too. They don’t plan to increase the size of the in-game frog “catalog,” since the whole point of the game is to have the player make decisions about which frogs to keep and breed, but they are working on something tentatively called the “Frogodex,” which would passively track every frog ever collected by players in the game. They’re also considering integrating Game Center in terms of leaderboards and achievements in the future — they originally decided to go with Ngmoco’s Plus+ system because it “provides a number of services crucial to social game developers which Game Center does not,” including backing up game data and doing things like browsing your friends’ frog habitats.

And finally, Marsh says the company has been overwhelmed by all of the positive feedback, and the feature request list “is growing faster every day.” The next big update they’re planning, he tells TUAW, will be “a rare new pattern color mutation” that he thinks people will like. And he also tells us to look out for “exclusive surprises in-store for upcoming holidays.” Sounds like NimbleBit has a nice freemium hit on their hands, and we’ll look forward to updates in the future.

TUAWNimbleBit: Over half a million playing Pocket Frogs, “3-4%” buying in-app purchases originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 20 Sep 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When iOS 4.2 makes it to the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch in November, we’ll finally be able to print from those devices with a native Apple capability called AirPrint. In most cases, you’ll need to have a printer that has been shared on a Mac or PC, since AirPrint won’t have drivers available for the huge variety of printers that exist.

If you’re looking for a direct-to-printer solution, though, HP announced that three of its new printers will be ready for the proprietary ePrint technology, which allows driverless printing from iOS devices anywhere as long as they’re Internet-connected. These printers also work with AirPrint.

One of the printers was previously discussed on TUAW: the $299 (and up, depending on features) Officejet Pro 8500A. The cleverly-designed HP Envy 100 e-All-in-One (pictured above, link is to product PDF) is the least expensive of the new printers at $249, while the Photosmart eStation tops the base prices of the HP AirPrint-friendly printers at $399. The latter printer isn’t that likely to be attractive to iPad owners, since it comes with a detachable 7″ Android-based tablet “internet companion” that would be a bit redundant.

Having the ability to print recipes, boarding passes, and iWork documents directly from the iPad to a printer with no intervening computer is going to be awesome.

[via cnet]

TUAWHP reveals AirPrint-friendly printers originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 20 Sep 2010 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Just like that, the multi-format video playback app VLC has now made it to the App Store in the form of VLC Media Player for iPad. As Chris reported a couple of weeks ago, the much-beloved open source media tool has been ported and is now available for free download.

We’re grabbing our copy right now and will soon be putting it through its versatile paces.

Thanks Bart!

TUAWVLC for iPad hits the store originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 20 Sep 2010 14:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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That didn’t take long. Earlier this year, Nuance Communications took over the MacSpeech product, with the intention of improving what was already a good application.

That has now been accomplished, and today Dragon Dictate is available for the Macintosh platform — a reasonably priced upgrade for MacSpeech users.

The new version offers easier editing, the ability to switch between different microphones, and it uses a computer voice to proofread your dictated documents. The speech engine has been updated to new state-of-the-art technology.

It’s nice to see speech recognition on the Mac that finally has feature parity with the PC versions. There are some nice new and unexpected features like saying ‘search Google for Greek restaurants’, and you can do a Spotlight search by voice.

TUAWDragon Dictate for Mac now available originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 20 Sep 2010 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple has spent a little bit of that huge cash surplus to buy Polar Rose, a Sweden-based technology company that focuses on face recognition. In a blog post dated September 2nd, Thijs Stalenhoef notes that their face-tagging service is closing down, and, “You may yet see our technology in one of our licensees’ products in the future.”

Polar Rose produced a cool product called FaceCloud, which brought face recognition to web services. Think photo tagging on Facebook to get an idea. iPodNN guesses that Apple may want to bring the service to MobileMe, thereby providing the Faces feature to those without iPhoto.

In addition, their very cool FaceLib technology allows mobile devices to recognize users’ faces and pull up their associated social networking services, like Facebook, Twitter, Fickr and more. We can easily see such a thing working on the iPhone. Watch a video of FaceLib for Android after the break.

TUAWApple has bought out Polar Rose originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 20 Sep 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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On Friday, Gawker ran the story of Chelsea K. Isaacs and her claimed email back-and-forth with Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Now it’s all the buzz.

Isaacs, a self-described “renowned college journalist, artist and social fixture” (also apparently North America’s “most desirable hand model” at the age of 12, which is, if accurate, rather creepy), didn’t get the replies she sought when she reached out to Apple’s media relations team over and over for answers relating to a class assignment. Since her three iPad-related questions were apparently the key to her getting an A on her classwork, and she felt that she’d been ill-treated by the silence, she took her case to El Steve.

The exchange was spicy enough to get covered all over the place, from New York Magazine to the UK’s Guardian newspaper. Apparently, when a CEO bothers to answer his email at all, she thought he’d be friendly and helpful — not say things like “Our goals do not include helping you get a good grade” and “Please leave us alone.” Curt and more than a little rude? Sure, but a) that’s our Steve, and b) she kind of had it coming.

I’m not sure how much Ms. Isaacs knows about Apple, but if she was expecting a prompt and thorough response to any question that began “I’m working on a college assignment” from the PR folk, she’s not living on the same planet as any journalist or blogger who covers the company. From the bottom to the top, Apple employees hold their cards close to the chest, and often as not a request for comment goes unanswered — even from major media outlets, to say nothing of college seniors.

Calling repeatedly and desperately with the three mystery iPad questions, rather than rolling with a placid “Apple’s representatives were not available for comment” or seeking out other sources of info, doesn’t speak for her journalistic acumen. Emailing the CEO to complain that nobody would help her with her schoolwork? Well, that’s just sophomoric. One thing’s for certain, though, she’s got her good grade in Brand Promotion 101 — although who knows how well it will serve her out in the job market.

Of course, from a media relations perspective, far better if Steve had skipped replying at all, or come back with a simple “Sorry, can’t help” rather than getting in that satisfying but unnecessary dig about her grades. Then again, she’s fortunate he didn’t get really ticked off and go all ninja on her.

TUAWStevemail smackdown on student strikes sparks originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 20 Sep 2010 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Last week the Mercury News reported that Apple is working on plans to sell newspaper subscriptions to iPad owners. Today, a follow-up from the Wall Street Journal suggests that it could launch as early as next month, and will include magazines as well.

While Apple declined to comment, the WSJ’s sources note that plans are moving forward, even though publishers are hesitant. Some see Apple’s dominance over the online music market as foreboding, while others are leery of Apple’s typical 30 percent cut.

Among the reportedly agreeable publishers is Hearst, which owns huge properties like the Oprah Winfrey magazine, Esquire, Cosmo (admit it, you take the quizzes) and The Houston Chronicle, among others. I’ve used the current Popular Mechanics app, another Hearst product, and love it.

Also in contention is data that publishers use for their marketing efforts, like name, email addresses, subscription histories and more. Apple reportedly doesn’t want to turn it over, and publishers want it.

I’m hoping it works out, because I find I’m reading newspapers more than I have in decades since buying my iPad. Also, I’d love to have a regular subscription to my old hometown paper delivered to me digitally every day.

TUAWRumor: Apple’s newspaper subscriptions could debut next month originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 20 Sep 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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After singer Lily Allen‘s laptop was hacked into, she turned to Apple for help in identifying the attacker. When they refused, she decided to sue Apple into helping her, according to The Sun.

As The Next Web points out, the Sun’s article is brief (to say the least) and the backstory — was Allen’s initial request for help refused by Apple? — is dubious. It sounds to us like she’s motivated to find the attacker, and the lawsuit is not necessarily designed to punish Apple. It seems there are 3rd-party companies that would gladly do what Allen’s after, so we’re not sure why she’s suing Apple.

Also amusing is this profile of Allen and Future Cut that Apple itself put out not too long ago, describing how they used Logic Pro to put her album together. Thanks to The Next Web for pointing that one out.

TUAWPop musician Lily Allen to sue Apple originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 20 Sep 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Raise your hand if you remember gorging yourself at the feast that was Napster. After tough times and much retooling, Napster is now available for iOS devices (free) with a per-month subscription model.

Here’s how it works. For US$10 per month, users can stream and cache any of the 10 million available songs to their iPod touches, iPhones or iPads. You can create on-the-go playlists, re-order songs, cache up to 100 songs at a time and browse the Billboard charts all the way back to 1955! 80’s playlist, here I come!

New customers can enjoy the service for free for a limited time, and then receive 20% of should they become new customers. Have fun, music lovers.

[Via Engadget]

TUAWNapster app available for iOS originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 20 Sep 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Taiwanese customers placed 200,000 iPhone 4 pre-orders, yet carriers fear that only about one-fourth of those orders will be filled by the end of the year.

iPhonetouch.Blorge reports that Apple’s three Taiwanese carrier partners, Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan Mobile and Far EasTone, had access to a mere 1,800 iPhone 4s when they finally became available on September 15th. Additionally, the carriers expect to receive no more than 50,000 units before the year’s end.

Meanwhile, the chairman of manufacturer Foxconn told the press that his company is pumping out 1.5 iPhones per second — that’s about 137,000 units per day — to keep up with the enormous global demand. In fact, Foxconn recently bought 1,000 special machining rigs at $20k each to help them stay on track. Most manufacturers own one. Unless they’re on Kamino.

Remember that “antenna issue” that was supposed to doom the iPhone 4? Um, yeah.

[Via Macsimum News]

TUAWTaiwanese carriers can’t meet iPhone 4 pre-orders originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 20 Sep 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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