Do you use your iPhone like a camera and want an authentic look and feel? Then you should check out the Snap! case from Bitplay. As noticed by Swiss Miss, the case mimics the outer casing of a retro camera and even has a working shutter button. The backside of the case has dials and buttons that match the styling of your typical 35-mm shooter. Thankfully, these decorations won't get in the way of you using your iPhone as a phone. You can grab the Snap! case for US$49.99 from Dynamism, popular online retailer from Japan that specializes in exports. You can check out the camera case in the promotional video below. [Via Swiss Miss] Snap! camera case for iPhone has working shutter button originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 24 May 2012 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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If you're looking for an app-based TechCrunch experience on your iPad, here it is. The iPad app is a streamlined experience over the site in Safari, presenting a simple list of categories to choose from, and 3 basic feeds: the main river (which can be narrowed using those categories), trending stories and curated tweets. There's a lot more under the hood, however. Commuters will be pleased to know there's a "Save for later" option when clicking the "Share" icon. You can, of course, also share stories via email or social media, and the app allows you to tie your Facebook account in (TechCrunch uses Facebook comments, primarily). My favorite feature is the easy access to Crunchbase data alongside each article. While it's easy to click into more info, the app never goes too deep to get you lost. I can't stand when apps just layer interfaces on top, over and over, and you have to "flip" the pages just to get back to the main screen. The TechCrunch app uses a familiar "back" and "next" system, although it is often labelled in context (Saved Articles takes you back to your list but Explore may take you further down the rabbit hole of data). This makes reading articles a breeze, and makes it easy to find out more information without being overhwhelmed. About the only problem I encountered was with the curated tweets. When jumping to a story on The Next Web, the smallish webview that takes up the lower half of the screen was overwhelmed by a slow cover-up from TNW urging you to register, or something, and it happened to cover the article I was trying to read! Aside from things beyond the app's control, such as annoying web design habits, it's a great way to read TechCrunch on your iPad. TUAW's imaginary friend, our own iPad app, is very jealous! The app is free, so give it a try yourself.The TechCrunch iPad app is slick and simple originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 24 May 2012 11:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Adam Lashinsky, Sr. of Fortune takes an interesting look at Tim Cook and how the new CEO is changing Apple. He spends a great deal of time writing about Cook's business practices and the philosophy that'll shape the Apple of the future. Lashinsky writes, In general, Apple has become slightly more open and considerably more corporate. In some cases Cook is taking action that Apple sorely needed and employees badly wanted. It's almost as if he is working his way through a to-do list of long-overdue repairs the previous occupant (Jobs) refused to address for no reason other than obstinacy. He also talks about Cook's relationship with Apple employees and presents Cook as a much more approachable leader than Steve Jobs who was "simultaneously revered, loved, and feared." You can read the entire article on Fortune's website.Considering how Tim Cook is changing Apple originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 24 May 2012 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Earlier this week, CEOs from Apple and Samsung met for court-ordered mediation talks that turned out to be fruitless. Now, the two companies are back to their legal hijinks with Samsung claiming Apple is withholding evidence, according to a report in FOSS Patents. Samsung is asking the United States District Court for the Northern District of California to penalize Apple for not complying with an April 12, 2012 order that required Apple to provide Samsung with documents from related proceedings. Apple tried to comply, but some of the documents were from ITC investigations and the ITC wouldn't let Apple share them with Samsung. Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents believes Samsung is using this document request to delay the trial. It will take time for the district court and the ITC decide which documents can and cannot be shared with the Korean company. Apple is asking for clarification from the court on this point and is waiting for a response.Samsung accuses Apple of withholding evidence originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 24 May 2012 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Dear Aunt TUAW, Is there any app you know of that i could use to turn down the volume of individual/specific apps on my Mac without turning down the whole of the system. If you've ever used it on windows seven then you'll know how useful it is. Any apps you could recommend. i'm willing to pay (but not that much - just in case apple introduces its own solution?) Your loving nephew, Ben Dear Ben, You'll want to take a look at Audio Hijack Pro from Rogue Amoeba. With it, you can hijack each application you want to adjust and apply a filter (Auntie imagines "gain", with the gain turned down) to tweak the sound levels. You can read more about using Audio Hijack Pro for per-application volume tweaks in this write-up. Rogue Amoeba's Paul Kafasis explains, "While Audio Hijack Pro is geared as a recording tool, we've seen lots of users taking advantage of it for audio adjustment as well. Once an app is hijacked, Audio Hijack Pro provides fantastic control over the audio output. The Mute button is handy for temporarily silencing annoying apps, and the Effects area provides all sorts of power. The Gain slider found there makes it possible to turn audio down or up. As well, plugins like Double Gain can amp things up further (helpful on laptops with weaker speakers), while the 10-band equalizer is nice to have in all sorts of apps which lack their own." Holding your breath for a 10.8 or 10.9 feature direct from Apple? Kafasis told Auntie, "It seems rather unlikely Apple is going to add this - it's been a desire since 10.0, and has never been added." Audio Hijack Pro offers a free trial period so you can experiment before buying. Best of luck, Auntie T.Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me adjust app volume originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 24 May 2012 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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How do you launch a social networking site in this day and age, long after the likes of Facebook and Twitter seized the world? One answer is "micro-social networks": designed with a clear and specific purpose in mind, they can fulfill that purpose better than any of the generalists like Facebook. Platter is a new micro-social network app dedicated home cooking. It allows you to take pictures of food you make and upload them to show the world, tagging them with the you used ingredients. You can then search through those ingredient tags, finding inspiration for something to make with the ingredients you have to hand. As you'd expect, you can also do the usual social networking things, like follow people whose food you find interesting, and post comments and "likes" on pictures. "Why do I need this?" you might ask. "I have Instagram and Twitter, Facebook and Foodspotting. Why do I need another app?" Well, the Platter team cleverly identified that in fact none of these apps are exactly what you need if you're a home cook looking to show off. Instagram has plenty of food pics, but lacks the ingredient tagging feature. Twitter and Facebook are more general purpose. Foodspotting is designed around the idea of taking pictures of food when eating out, not for home cooking. Platter is complementary to these services. To underscore this, it has (as you'd probably expect) the ability to cross-post pictures to Facebook and Twitter. These cross-posts are in the form of links to Platter's attractive web interface (self-promotion alert: that's my own Platter page), from where you can drill down into individual pictures. This web view feature is already fuller-featured than Instagram's pared-down approach, as you can navigate from users to pictures and back again, and the Platter team are planning on expanding this further in the future. Gallery: Platter, the social network for keen cooks Technically, Platter works pretty well. It's been developed by a small team of five people (for both iOS and Android versions) alongside their day jobs, and early on there were some rough edges that betrayed the app's homespun origins -- the occasional layout glitch or failed post. Subsequent patches have mostly fixed the problems. There's still the odd interface quirk -- I didn't find it particularly easy to navigate through the app at first, and sometimes tap targets seem to be frustratingly unresponsive -- but nothing too annoying. I couldn't test the Android version, but I must at least note that it has one -- so your Android-toting friends aren't left out in the cold. There are some usability decisions that are quite refreshing, too. There's no fancy/hackneyed (delete according to your biases) photo filters, for one thing; if you're suffering from Instagram Fatigue you may find this a relief. The app also doesn't enforce a trendy square crop on photos; when users view your images, they'll see the aspect ratio you took them in, giving you the flexibility to compose shots as you see fit. However, note that the layouts in-app often use square thumbnails, which can result in some weird cropping. Of course, the app can import pictures from the Camera Roll as well as take them live, so if you'd prefer you can use any app already on your camera to shoot, crop, and post-process images. Image compositing app Diptic seems to be a particularly popular choice. Platter's approach to tagging us also interesting. Unlike Twitter or Instagram's free-form approach, the ingredient tags are set by the system, and you can't add to them yourself; this promotes a clean hierarchy of tags that isn't littered with duplicates or misspellings. However, so far, the tag names are resolutely Brit speak rather than American orientated; so it's "coriander" and not "cilantro", "aubergine" rather than "eggplant", "courgette" over "zucchini". My Colonial cousins may find this jarring. (Note that the Platter team told me a fix for this is on the way -- see below.) As for the actual content, the food, I've definitely found Platter to be inspirational. Not only on a "what can I make with this level" but also simply from a presentation point of view. And it's particularly good to know, when looking through pictures, that these are all shot at home in an amateur's kitchen. Looking at professional dishes on Foodspotting inspires me to eat; looking at amateur dishes in Platter inspires me to cook. Platter is also building a fun community. The developers of the app are all very active on the network, commenting on dishes and running competitions. There's a sub-type of user who delights in naming their dishes with the most groan-inducing puns you can imagine, such as my personal best, "steaks on a p(l)an(e)". Chatting with Platter I spoke with Will Hodson, director of Platter, about the future plans for the app. How did the idea for Platter come about? "Platter occurred to me as I developed another project with Channel 4's 4iP scheme. They were looking for ideas that could drill down into people's food habits; I thought of something like food Twitter... but didn't want to share it with a media giant!" What sort of team put Platter together? Is this a full time thing, a sideline gig, or what? How many of you are there, what are your backgrounds, and how long did it take? "Platter was co-founded by me and four developers. Most of us are fairly recent Cambridge graduates, working in software and programming. I met these guys as a client for another job, was struck by their competence, and we all got on." How do you feel the launch has gone? Are you finding a good audience? "Our press coverage is a testament to the appeal of the concept. We've been featured or recommended in all UK broadsheets as well as Evening Standard and Stylist. ABC News in the US recently named us as the number two app for food photos in the world (just behind Instagram). "Launch has gone well. I wanted to give this a serious food-loving hardcore and we have it. Our featured cooks read like a who's who of British food blogging: we have two of MSN's Most Influential Foodies on board, a Masterchef Finalist and most of London's top bloggers." Some of the food bloggers Will mentioned include Food Urchin, Gin and Crumpets, Meemalee and Leluu. I forgive him for not mentioning my own sparsely-updated food blog, Objection: Salad!, which has won precisely zero awards from MSN's Most Influential Foodies. It must have slipped his mind. What are your immediate plans for the app? New features? US localisation? Bugfixes? "We are in discussions with investors now. There are big plans afoot. First, expanding tags to cover dishes' influences as well as their ingredients. So if my dish inspires you to try something similar, you can tag my influence in your photo. This is almost a new currency of approval in social media. It also means communities can form around cookbooks and suppliers, taking Platter way beyond Instagram into food-specific functionality. Second, we'll open up our website for logged-in use. It will also enable curation of one's favourite dishes. And third, we'll look to put down some roots in the States. "Finally, we are looking into Instagram integration, via a similar solution to that used by Foodspotting -- users post pictures to their Instragram feed with a special hashtag, and we pick that up and re-post the picture to Platter." You lead on both iOS and Android at once. That's somewhat unusual. Was that tricky to manage? Did it definitely bring in more users than if you'd led with one platform at a time? "Android was fine to develop for because our Android guy has been fantastic. Marketing it has been a nightmare however. If you type in Platter on Google Play, it assumes you mean 'Plate'. So it's tricky to find our app. You'd expect better from Google. We're still committed to the Android App but most users are on iPhone." Anything else you'd like to say to our readers? "We've got this far with no budget and limited time, yet we've still established Platter as a great place for food photos. As we push out to embrace more home cooks making fantastic dishes around the world, Platter will become the place you go to decide what to eat." I can't say any more than that, really. One of the privileges of writing for TUAW is being able to help smaller apps find a wider audience. I've really enjoyed Platter in the six or so weeks I've been using it, and I wish it every success for the future. You can download Platter for iPhone for free from the App Store.Platter: novel photo-sharing social network for keen cooks originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 24 May 2012 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Game rental service GameFly has decided to go all-in on mobile publishing for some reason. The service, which rents out console games in the Netflix style, and runs the Shacknews gaming news outlet, has had a pretty popular GameCenter app out on the App Store for a while now. But now it's getting into the App Store even deeper: A few weeks back, GameFly said it would team up with developers to spotlight "Game of the Day" titles on its app, and now the company is planning to outright publish some iOS games itself. GameFly is also looking to set up its own Android App Store. Very interesting move by a company that's traditionally been mostly involved with console titles -- clearly, GameFly is reaching out to add a few new tunes to its repertoire. The Android Store is set to be released by the end of the year, while GameFly says we'll see some iOS titles published later on this summer.GameFly wants to get into iOS publishing, create an Android App Store originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 24 May 2012 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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"This is Nelson," says iPhone owner Katy McCaffrey of the picture above, posted on her Facebook. "Nelson has my stolen iPhone." McCaffrey took her iPhone on a Disney Cruise back in April, where the phone was either misplaced or stolen. But it's been found, now. Photo Stream was still running, and pictures from the iPhone have started appearing on it of Nelson and his friends and coworkers on the boat. Disney has investigated the situation and says the phone has been recovered and will be returned to its owner when the boat that it's on is back in port. The employee in question is on "administrative leave," and his fate will presumably be determined when the current cruise is finished. Disney is doing its best to make things right, but yeah, shame on Nelson for not making sure the phone (which you have to imagine had McCaffrey's info on it, right?) was returned to its owner right away. [Via NPR]Stolen iPhone photos unwittingly posted by Disney cruise ship employee originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 23 May 2012 23:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Want your desktop browser pages to show up on your iPhone or iPad, so you can keep on browsing where you left off? There are a few products already offering this feature, including the capable Firefox Home, but Yahoo's mobile product team didn't want to stop with a simple sync engine. They decided to deliver a new search plugin for the desktop, and a new browser for the mobile space: Yahoo! Axis. Billed as "a new way to search and browse," Axis aims to give your searches more flexibility and flair with predictive results, swipe-to-view search thumbnails, and the aforementioned synchronized recent pages. The overall result is pretty easy to use, if not exactly pretty-pretty -- the theme is very dark gray, compared to Safari's lighter look. Axis includes sharing options for Pinterest and Twitter, plus emailing URLs. Logging into the iOS browser and installing the desktop plugin (for Safari, Firefox or Chrome on the Mac, and those plus IE on Windows) enables the synchronized open tabs & recent searches features. Bookmarks in the app also sync across, making it easier to track your favorite sites on the go. Axis has still got a few rough edges, especially on the desktop plugins. The Chrome plugin I tested had some issues with page content and didn't seem particularly happy with YouTube playback. Still, Yahoo is definitely putting some energy (technical and promotional) behind this offering -- it's not bad now, and it's going to get better. For a quick demo of the product, Yahoo has thoughtfully posted the video below. (Link via The Next Web) And here's the rather silly TV ad for the iPad version of Axis. Watch out for that caber, laddie! Yahoo! Axis delivers synchronized browsing for iPad and desktop originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 23 May 2012 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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It's a pity that they don't feature a doorway that lets you crawl inside his brain, but the ever-fascinating John Malkovich is the star of two new "Celebrity Siri" ads. Previous ads have featured Zooey Deschanel and Samuel L. Jackson chatting with Apple's iPhone 4S-based digital assistant. The two ads, "Life" and "Joke," are embedded below via Apple's official YouTube channel. Enjoy! Thanks to Sean for the heads-up.Two new Verizon Siri ads feature John Malkovich originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 23 May 2012 22:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Dear Aunt TUAW, I read Uncle Steve's write-up about posting an iWeb site to a Dropbox folder. It's a great blog post and neat trick! But it's using the Public folder... Is there a way to use a non-public folder to do the same? Your loving nephew, Seb Dear Seb, Auntie is fond of Kissr.co, not just because of its name, of course, but because it makes setting up a website on Dropbox super easy. Just register for a name, and use Uncle Steve's save-from-iWeb secret techniques, and boom, you'll have a full website running from your Dropbox in no-time. If you want a custom domain, Kissr offers those for a small charge. If you're more interested in wikis than blogs, take a look at WikiPack. It's a markdown-powered Wiki service that also serves from Dropbox. (And Uncle Brett consulted on the project!) Auntie has tried both services (albeit, just poking around, no serious testing) and both seem to offer practical, portable, usable solutions. Hugs, Auntie T.Dear Aunt TUAW: How do I post a website on Dropbox? originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 23 May 2012 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Note to viewers: By "The 1980's episode" I mean that I'll be doing a retrospective look at some ancient Mac magazines with you looking over my virtual shoulder. I will not be wearing my corduroy suit and disco platform shoes. Yep, it's time to pop into the time machine and take a trip back to the days of John Sculley, expensive storage, and no Internet. Trust me, you'll be shocked at just how primitive things were just 22 to 27 years ago. The only good thing about the 80's? I had a lot of hair back then. Below, you'll find a Ustream livestream viewer and a chat tool. The chat tool allows you to participate by asking questions or making comments. You can also choose to watch the show on Justin.tv if you wish, by visiting our portal at http://justin.tv/tuawtvlive. In either case, you'll be watching the show in glorious HD! If you're driving somewhere and would like to watch TUAW TV Live while you're stuck in traffic, please don't -- keep your eyes on the road! However, if someone else is doing the driving, you can watch the show on your iPhone and join the chat by downloading the free Ustream App. It's a universal app and is wonderful on an iPad, both for viewing and participating in the chat. We'll start at about 5 PM ET, so if you're seeing a prerecorded show, be sure to refresh your browser until you see the live stream. For those of you who are not able to join us for the live edition, you'll be able to view it later this evening on our TUAW Video YouTube channel and as part of the TUAW TV Live podcast viewable in iTunes or on any of your Apple devices. TUAW TV Live: The 1980's episode originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 23 May 2012 16:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Storage giant Seagate has announced intentions to buy controlling interest in LaCie, a boutique hard drive and storage company. Seagate has offered to purchase from Philippe Spruch, LaCie's chairman and CEO, and his affiliate, all of their shares, representing 64.5% of the outstanding shares of LaCie. Following receipt of governmental approvals and the close of this transaction, Seagate would commence an all-cash simplified tender offer to acquire the remaining outstanding shares in accordance with the General Regulation of the French Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF). Seagate will acquire LaCie for US $186 million. LaCie drives have been known for their physical design. At times, LaCie has contracted out to companies like Porsche Design for enclosures. Seagate products have been a bit more establishment, and it looks like Seagate wants to have some impact in upscale consumer devices. The transaction is subject to regulatory approval in the United States (antitrust filing), France (approval of foreign investments by the Ministry of Finance) and other jurisdictions (antitrust filing in Germany) and to other customary closing conditions. LaCie has been popular among Mac users, and its drives and accessories are currently sold in Apple Stores worldwide. Late last year, LaCie began selling the first Thunderbolt drives for Macs priced under $1000.Seagate to acquire LaCie originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 23 May 2012 16:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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iBook Lessons is a continuing series about ebook writing and publishing. Talk about rookie mistakes! We finally discovered the reason the iPad-only iBooks Author version of our Mountain Lion ebook got stuck on its way to release: we hadn't submitted a custom sample along with the full ebook. Every iBooks Author submission requires a sample book for paid book accounts: "[A] custom created sample...is required for all Multi-Touch books offered for sale in the iBookstore" For further details, Apple has a support article about publishing requirements here. So we went ahead and created our sample. To do this, you duplicate your book to a new project and then delete all non-sample content. Removing chapters is easy: select them, click delete. It's a little more complicated for in-sample chapter-text. You must edit the actual content. Make sure you delete the text and images you want gone, and then trim away any remaining pages. It took us a number of tries to get this right because we thought we could delete pages directly by selecting them and clicking delete. You can't. Pages only represent layout, not content, and our undeleted content kept popping back at us until we figured this bit out. Once the project was trimmed down to size, we saved it and exported it to an .ibooks author file. We then bundled the full and sample versions up through iTunes Producer and re-submitted to iTunes connect. The multi-touch book went live in the store instantly upon uploading the sample version. One of the reasons this process went as quickly as it did is that Apple has apparently been conducting its own internal audits, finding books that have been submitted to the iBookstore but that haven't gone live yet. Support requests like ours trigger a list of issues that need addressing. We now wish that we had contacted Apple sooner, rather than falling into the "we have no control or say in this process" mindset. Of course, Apple could have simply sent a robo-email telling us that the iBook needed a sample rather than making us wait two weeks to find our mistake. Deciding what to include in our sample led a bit of debate. We weren't sure whether to include an entire section (which we weren't sure would work out of context) or bits and pieces from all over the book. In the end, we settled on distributing our preface, which includes overviews of each of our chapters and our intro-video, which welcomes readers and explains the purpose of the book. For a larger book, we think we might have gone with a full sample chapter instead. We couldn't find much online discussions about choosing material to include in a sample. (We're used to Amazon and iBooks deciding that for us from our EPUB.) To this end, here's what we felt would be relevant to creating sample content: It should reflect the writing style of the authors, to give readers a sense of the flow and pace of the text, and answer the question "Does this author's voice match the way I want to read?" It should reflect the contents, showing readers some of the scope that the book covers, "Am I interested in this material? Does it have compelling utility?" If the book has a particular flow, for example lessons, it should showcase that style, "Can I follow along the way this book is teaching me based on this sample?" Beyond those few thoughts, however, our immediate push was to get a sample created and submitted. I'm sure if we had spent a little more time and effort, we could have expanded these ideas further; maybe if we ever get around to writing "iBook Lessons" as a standalone book, we'll flesh this out. For now, we got past a hurdle we weren't aware even existed, and learned an important lesson about being proactive with support requests. Hopefully our rookie mistake will save you some wasted time and effort. Do you have thoughts about creating ebook samples to share? Or examples of your own rookie mistakes? Drop a comment and let us know.iBook Lessons: Book samples and rookie mistakes originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 23 May 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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On paper, Laser VR sounds like one of the worst product ideas ever: you need to buy an iPhone, a laser pointer, and a Pico projector just to get started, but darn if we here at TUAW aren't drooling over the prospect. An iPhone provides both the graphics generation piece, which is piped through a cable to a small projection system (low end projection systems now start around US$125), and the computer vision system that aligns itself to the projected image and interprets the laser pointer position for gaming. As the following proof-of-concept video shows, while niche, the prospect of gaming on your wall could be super-cool. Laser VR: Projector + computer vision + laster pointer = fun! originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 23 May 2012 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Anyone who has visited the Stanford Shopping Center cant miss the black sheeting that covers Apple's upcoming retail store, says a Palo Alto Online report. The new store will occupy two vacant storefronts and eventually will replace a mini-store that's located nearby. Residents can see the breadth of the construction, but the design and layout of the store are a closely guarded secret. The biggest source of information is the recently-discovered final building plans, which were submitted to the City of Palo Alto earlier this year. These plans contain a detailed rendering that shows a stunning building with exterior glass walls and a center stone wall that separates the building into two distinct spaces. Construction will continue until the store's expected November opening. [Via ifoAppleStore]Apple Store rendering shows another glass box in California originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 23 May 2012 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Apple designer Jony Ive was knighted today in a ceremony held at Buckingham Palace, according to a BBC News UK report. It's an honor he said was "absolutely thrilling." Ive's knighthood was announced late last year and the ceremony took place on Wednesday. The famed Apple designer shared some small talk with Princess Anne, who was doing the knighting. You can watch the short ceremony on the BBC's website.Jony Ive's knighting ceremony originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 23 May 2012 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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I've been using Apple products for longer than many of our readers have been alive. Back in the "old days" before the Internet, it was commonplace to get our Mac news once a month in the form of a magazine. During a recent attempt at de-cluttering my basement, I found a pristine stack of old Macworld and MacUser magazines that I found fascinating. On today's show, I'll be taking you through some of the articles and ads in these magazines that date from 1985 through 1990. It's not only fun to see how expensive some things were back then (tiny hard drives for US$1000), but the ads are a blast as well. As usual, I'll be starting the show at 5 PM EDT (2 PM PDT / 10 PM BST) sharp, and we'll take a few minutes to chat before the demos start. To join in on the chat and watch the live streaming video, drop by TUAW about five minutes before the start time to get your instructions on how to participate. If you're unable to join us for the show, remember that you can always subscribe to the video podcast and watch the show at your leisure in iTunes or any other favorite podcatching app. The past shows are also available on the TUAW YouTube channel. The chat is on IRC: join us on server chat1.ustream.tv, chat room #tuaw-tv.TUAW TV Live at 5 PM EDT: Tripping down memory lane originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 23 May 2012 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Meet Heckerty is a delightful British children's story starring Heckerty, a "zany, 409-year-old, upside-down-on-her-broomstick, green-faced witch," and her sidekick cat Zanzibar. The traditional story has made its way to the iPad with a wonderful adaptation that takes advantage of the interactivity offered by Apple's tablet device. Children can choose to read the book themselves or have the voice of Jan Ziff read the story to them. Each page is filled with at least one tappable element that'll jump, move or make a noise when your child touches it. The storytelling is outstanding and the story is the perfect length for the younger set who can only sit still for a short period of time. My children loved the iPad storybook, and there's little doubt that Meet Heckerty sets a high standard for other children's books to follow. We got a chance to speak to Jan Ziff and Allan Davidson, the husband and wife team that brought the Heckerty series to the iPad. We asked them about their experience in adapting the popular children's story to the iPad and their future plans for the series. You can read the interview below. You can also find out more about Heckerty on her website. The Meet Heckerty app is available from iTunes for 99-cents. At that price, it's a must-have for parents with young children. Q: One the first things I noticed about the book is its excellent storytelling. Can you tell me a little bit more about the Heckerty story and the storyteller behind the app? A: The Heckerty stories do have a "secret sauce" - it's the great British oral storytelling tradition that goes all the way back to The Canterbury Tales through Alice in Wonderland to Beatrix Potter and Winnie the Pooh, and recently to Harry Potter. Ann Rachlin created the Heckerty stories and refined them for many years in her renowned Fun With Music classes in London. Jan really was the original Fun With Music student, along with her two siblings, and often served as a test audience for ideas that were later integrated into Fun With Music, and became part of Ann's many records and books for 2-9 year-olds. That's where Jan learned to combine words with the rhythms of music, which you may not always hear but is definitely part of the what creates Heckerty's magic. And Ann's wonderful storytelling skills made all the difference as we developed and recorded the stories for this series. But to your question - it was in late in 2010 that Ann asked us whether we thought Heckerty could be brought to life on an iPad or iPhone. We loved the idea, did some research, thought about it and decided to do it. It's been a fascinating ride with all kinds of unexpected turns and plot twists but Heckerty's now out the door and everybody that's seen the app so far has loved it, something we've all found tremendously rewarding! Q: Did you use iBooks Author to develop the book? If so, can you summarize your experience with the tool? If not, how did you bring the book from printed pages to digital format? A: No, we didn't use iBooks Author for several reasons - first, it wasn't available when we launched, second, even though iOS was the dominant and most creative platform, it was clear that there would be other competing operating systems and that we'd need to serve them. That's how we ended up using Flash for this project. And Flash turned out to have been a great decision - it let us go straight from the original text and Ann's storytelling to the "living" graphics and child-friendly form factor that distinguish the iPhone and iPad and other mobile devices. We could really bring out the rich interactivity and audio that these devices are so perfectly suited to. From a production and technical perspective, we had to shorten and tweak them so that they'd work well, then let Colin and Dave, our extraordinary programmer and animator team do their magic with the images, design and the audio we had developed -- the collaboration turned into Meet Heckerty and additional stories that are already in production. Q: As someone who now has experience with both traditional and digital media, what do you think of the iPad? Will it replace or complement printed books? A: We think the iPad is arguably the most exciting development in the history of personal computing. From its form factor, the screen resolution and the superb audio in the latest version, the iPad is changing the way stories can be told and the way they are told. Will the iPad and similar devices completely replace the printed book? We don't think so but it will continue to rapidly take over many of the functions that many print products like books, magazines and newspapers have traditionally provided. And the reason is simple, we think - where the iPad offers a substantially better experience, people will naturally gravitate to it, and over time, the capabilities of the iPad will both grow rapidly and the cost will drop dramatically. There will always be people who want a book, who enjoy the smell and the heft of a book, and love to see rows of spines on shelves. And then there are the voracious readers who could never take 12 printed books on vacation with them, but who can easily take an iPad - each sees different benefits in the book experience, each for different reasons. We also believe that the iPad is changing the way stories are told. And that rather than replacing or even complimenting printed books, the iPad and similar devices will have material written and produced for them, bringing the best of the story and leveraging the strength of the device to better tell that story .... that's what we've tried to do with Heckerty. Q: What was your biggest challenge in producing the iPad version of the Heckerty story? Did you have to modify the storyline (make it longer or shorter, for example) to accommodate the digital reading experience? A: We shortened and tightened the story to suit the iPad and how kids use the devices - the most pleasant surprise was how well-suited the Heckerty stories turned out to be for the iPad and iPhone - the biggest challenge on from a story perspective was letting the story's strengths come through and let the iPad make each one a unique experience. Q: Do you have plans to bring additional titles to the iPad? A: Absolutely!! Several stories are already in production - the next one to appear will be "Heckerty Cook" (that's the working title). Let's say that Heckerty's cooking skills and menus leave a lot to be desired ... and her cousins decide to fix the problem. Until you see the story, we'll leave the ingredients of the story to your imagination, but we can tell you that we still break down laughing every time we come to some of the scenes as we work on them! Hopefully, you and your audience will have time to talk about Heckerty again once Heckerty Cook ships!Meet Heckerty, well-known British children's story, makes its way to the iPad originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 23 May 2012 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Red Fly Studio is the group behind last year's great Inertia: Escape Velocity. Its latest title, Elenints, is more abstract. The name "Elenints" might come from a combination of the words "elements" and "integers". It's is a puzzle game where you place pieces on a board, trying to match up three of a kind and combine those into increasingly complex elements. The gameplay is similar to Triple Town, which I love. Both games require you to carefully plan how you'll place pieces to make combos. But while Triple Town simply blocks off space the more you play, Elenints is more dynamic. As "creepers" spawn, you can block them with an Elenint, which means that if you can change up your plan in time, you can prevent bears from ever showing up. That innovation alone makes Elenints worth a look, and there's also a sort of tutorial/puzzle mode that offers a nice twist on Triple Town's gameplay. Elenints is available for free on the App Store right now.Daily iPhone App: Elenints matches Triple Town's planning with a few new tricks originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 23 May 2012 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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For some reason I hadn't quite relegated the Google Search app on my iPhone to a folder, where most apps go to die. But it should have. The old Google Search app was atrocious -- a seemingly willful expenditure of effort on something so terrible it would serve to dissuade people from using it (or iOS) altogether. The new Google app is 100% better. On the iPhone, I'm noticing more UI niceties, and the "app" gets out of your way as much as possible. The previous version was full of irritating usability quirks. Once Siri came along, I all but forgot it existed. Google Goggles, however, and the picture searches possible, are great (though not new). The iPad app is really quite pleasing to use, and having all the Google apps in one handy interface is also very welcome. It's free, so try it out and see if Google's updated Search app is your cup of tea.Google search app for iPhone, iPad re-designed originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 23 May 2012 12:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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OK, so it wasn't a cage match, but the court-ordered meeting between Apple CEO Tim Cook and Samsung chief Choi Gee-Sung resulted in a continued agreement to disagree. While the judge in the case had hoped that getting the two companies together would result in peace, love, and kittens throughout the universe, Apple and Samsung came to no agreement. What does that mean? It means that Apple's still claiming that Samsung has stolen most of its industrial design for phones and tablets, and that Samsung is still peeved at Apple for allegedly stealing wireless transmission technology. It also means that the two companies will meet in court to fight this match to the finish, hopefully with Tim Cook delivering a tilt-a-whirl crossbody to Choi in the courtroom. Apple has good reason not to play nice and come to terms with Samsung. So far, Apple hasn't lost an infringement claim to Samsung, and recently filed a new injunction request against the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the US. While Samsung will probably just redesign the Galaxy Tab slightly to avoid the injunction (as they did in Germany), a win by Apple would be vindication that Samsung has blatantly copied the look of various products and a plus going into the courtroom in the future. [via AppleInsider]Court-ordered cage match between Apple, Samsung results in a draw originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 23 May 2012 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Security wonk Eugene Kaspersky is not happy with Apple, since the company won't let his eponymous antivirus firm develop antivirus software for iOS devices. Speaking to The Register, Kaspersky went so far as to say "That will mean disaster for Apple," since malware targeting the mobile operating system will "inevitably" strike iOS at some point in time. Kaspersky admits that iOS is "by design ... more secure" than other operating systems. His infection vector of choice is to place the malware into the source code of legal software that has to be downloaded from the App Store, as it is "almost impossible to develop malware which does not use vulnerabilities." Kaspersky goes on to say that an infection of this sort will "be the worst-case scenario because there will be no protection. The Apple SDK won't let us do it." That will, in the Russian's opinion, result in a loss of market share for Apple and a huge boost for Android -- an operating system he's happy with since it is less secure and he can develop security software for. He's so sure of the demise of iOS because of malware that he's made bets with friends stating that Android will have an 80% market share by 2015. That's one bet we hope he loses.Kapersky "disappointed" he can't sell AV software on iOS originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 23 May 2012 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Earlier today, Jonathan Ive was officially knighted at Buckingham Palace. To mark this occasion, Shane Richmond of The Telegraph published an excellent interview with the Apple design chief. In the long and personal conversation, Ive talks about his early design influences, which are decidedly British. He also talks extensively about his 20+ years at Apple, including a quick reference to his current work which he calls "the most important and the best work we've done." You can read more about Ive and his philosophy of design on The Telegraph's website.Jony Ive says Apple's current work is "most important" originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 23 May 2012 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Those of us who have used traditional computers for a while think the iPad is pretty magical. t's super fast, super portable, and the direct interactivity is a very different experience from what we're used to with a mouse and keyboard. But those comparisons aren't as valid for children who are growing up with this technology. While the iPad is a sea change for traditional computer users, the effect of using it on young minds is still mostly undetermined. This article in the Wall Street Journal talks about the scientists currently studying that effect. Studies on developmental experimentation usually take about three to five years, so with the iPad only available to the public for a little over two, actual research is still forthcoming. But so far, there are both good and bad effects for children using the iPad. First, because it is so direct and interactive, scientists have seen that kids are much more easily immersed in material they read and browse on Apple's tablet. Books, especially, are ideal on tablets, because they can use sound, video, and other forms of interaction to bring students right into the content. But the flip side of that is that kids can apparently get too immersed. Because the iPad is so focused and easy to use, too much screen time can interfere with childrens' development. On the other hand, too much of anything is obviously a mistake for toddlers. As with everything, iPad use will have to come down to what parents think is healthy, and best for that individual child.What happens in a toddler's brain when they use an iPad originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 23 May 2012 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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