Hello folks and welcome to another edition of AppleTalk Thursday. Let’s see what is happening in the world of Apple this week!
iOS 4.3.1 Update
Last Friday Apple released the update to the iOS 4.3. Among the fixes is indeed the battery issue on the iPhone. Since updating the 666MB update for my iPhone (yes, I know it is a creepy number), I have noticed a great improvement in the battery life on my iPhone 4.
WordPress optimization for iPad
Automattic Inc., the company behind WordPress has partnered with Onswipe to make blog viewing on the iPad a more pleasurable experience. With the help of Onswipe’s plug-in, viewing a WordPress blog looks very similar to FlipBook. In-fact this blog is now viewed this way on the iPad after I downloaded the plug-in and installed it. Let me know what you think!
Skype Mac Design Contest
Skype has announced a contest for a design for its upcoming Mac release client. I really like this because Skype really designs an ugly interface for the Mac side. The grand prize is an 11” MacBook Air, iPad 2, and a one year subscription to Skype’s Unlimited World Extra calling service. There are also runner up prizes such as an iPad 2 and AppleTV and CSS3 for Web Designers.
Apple working on a TV?
Here is an interesting tidbit about Apple possibly looking at making their own TV. Given last week’s news that they may license AirPlay to TV makers, I am not really putting too much stock into this story, but who would have thought Apple would make a phone one day.
Digital Locker Roundup: MobileMe, Amazon Cloud Player
Another bit of speculation about the upcoming MobileMe revamp and possible digital locker service costing $20 a year. If you saw the news this week of Amazon’s new Cloud-based storage, this would be the new MobileMe service right in the ballpark. Course maybe Apple is working out deals with record labels first before launching the service and not releasing the service before a deal is in place.
5-1 Connection Kit for iPad
Check out this little dongle device! Tired of unplugging one device and plugging in another? This may solve that issue and the $45 price is not too bad considering it is like a Swiss Army knife for the iPad.
Course if you just need an HDMI and USB dongle, your in luck too although the price is a bit steeper at around $73 US, oh did I mention it is only available in Japan?
WWDC What to Expect...and What not to Expect
Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference sold out within hours after tickets went on sale earlier this week. If you were one of the lucky ones to buy a ticket...you may not see the iPhone 5, but it sounds like you will see some really cool stuff in both OS X 10.7 Lion and the iOS 5 with deep voice command integration. When I first heard that, I pictured my iPhone talking like the late Barry White, but there is more to it than that and a Fall release of an iPhone 5 would make sense if it were to be an LTE capable device.
Personal Hotspot put to the Test
Finally today, Steven Sande of The Unofficial Apple Weblog decided while attending a trip with his wife who was attending a conference at a hotel, decided to utilize the new Personal Hotspot feature in his iPhone instead of paying for the hotel fee of $11 a day for WiFi. You can read his review of it here.
iOS App Reviews
Pocket Casts ($1.99) - I had grown frustrated with a bug in the iPhone that was displaying incorrect artwork for podcasts. They would display music genius like artwork for example. Even after the 4.3.1 update the issue remained. Than after posting about the issue in the GSPN Community page under Help, I Got a Mac, I came across Podcast Answer Man #200 where Cliff Ravencraft discussed how much he loves this app called Pocket Casts. So I took a chance and spent the $2 and you know what? He is right! First, you can have it scan your iPod app on the iPhone for all your subscribed podcasts and adds the feeds to the app and will show the latest 2 episodes per show in the download window, if you need more episodes, just select on the Show All Available Episodes to list and download each one.
Another cool feature is it will send push notifications and list a badge number for new episodes available for download...something the iPhone or iPad can’t do. You can even stream the episodes without downloading and save space on your iOS device. After using it for a day, I went ahead and downloaded all the episodes I have in iTunes and than un-synced podcasts to my iPhone to save space and I now use Pocket Casts to listen to my podcasts. Note although you can use it on the iPad, it is not a universal app meaning you will have to expand it 2x to get full screen on the iPad but hopefully they will update that part in a future release. Oh, and it will work over not just WiFi, but 3G and EDGE too.
Here is a video of how it all works.
<iframe src=“http://player.vimeo.com/video/20643630?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0” width=“400” height=“225” frameborder=“0”></iframe><p><a href=“http://vimeo.com/20643630”>Pocket Casts App Demo.</a> from <a href=“http://vimeo.com/nathanswan”>Nathan Swan</a> on <a href=“http://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p>
Vimeo (FREE) - I have come to really love Vimeo, unlike YouTube, Vimeo is HTML5 which means videos will play on iOS devices. Well, now they have an iPhone app which allows you to both view and record videos and edit your recorded videos. Pretty cool stuff, maybe not as feature rich as iMove for iPhone but considering it is free, that is nothing to sneeze at. My only issue is it did crash on me a few times but that is expected on a product first release. Sure an update will patch that issue.
QR Reader (FREE) - One thing that was promoted a lot at PodCamp Nashville was QR Codes. This feature was born on the Android, but it has grown to other devices and I have found a lot of reader apps for the iPhone, but this is a nice basic free one that can scan QR Codes and display their meaning within the app. Now I want to design one for my website to place on a business card.
Well, that is going to do it for this week’s AppleTalk Thursday. See you next week for more exciting Apple news.
Showing posts with label iPhone 5. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iPhone 5. Show all posts
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Thursday, March 24, 2011
AppleTalk Thursday #14
Hey everybody and welcome to another edition of AppleTalk Thursday, a blog about all things Apple, from Macs to iPhones to AppleTV, it is all here! So let’s get started!
Verizon iPhone Update
It has been six weeks since Verizon began selling the iPhone and already they have snared nearly 13% of the iPhone market...not to shabby. Additionally, more Verizon iPhone users are satisfied than AT&T iPhone users which does prove one thing to AT&T..it’s the network stupid! Which is why AT&T is buying up T-Mobile to better compete with the Verizon network going forward which is a very impressive network.
Apple reaches out to Japan Employees
Apple CEO Steve Jobs has reached out to Apple’s employees in Japan after the devastating earthquake to offer the employees time off and any supplies it needs. On a related note, Kevin Rose from Digg received an email from an employee of an Apple Store in Japan who tells of how the store became a gathering point for people to communicate with families and to see just what was going on. The email is very much a good read and I highly recommend to take the time and read it on Kevin’s blog.
NFC coming to iPhone 5 after all?
These stories seem to go back and forth on the next iPhone in terms of both NFC and LTE capability. Now it seems that NFC will be coming to the iPhone 5. As I have covered here previously, NFC is short for Near Field Communication and is seen as a way to create a digital wallet to basically use your iPhone to purchase things by waving it as a capture device for payment. If you go to Exxon for example you might be familiar with their SpeedPass system where a little peg on your keychain is tied to a credit card or debit card of your choice to swipe and pay for your gas. That is what this does although it does have more possibilities beyond digital payments. One day I will post a thorough breakdown on NFC and for that matter LTE (4G). Other speculation about the next iPhone is an aluminum backing and a bigger screen.
New York Times goes InApp Subscription based
Apple’s controversial InApp subscription model has scored a big customer in the New York Times which will be going to a subscription based model for its digital content both in website and iOS app content. But if you are expecting something similar to what The Daily charges, then you are in for a sticker shock.
That is a high price for me considering I am not a power reader of the Times. But they are offering free articles up to a certain number for users, however once you exceed that number, you have to pay up.
MobileMe rebirth in April?
With the launch of Apple’s North Carolina data center just around the corner, there is new reports that Apple will precent its new MobileMe service soon and what it will offer. The constant seems to be a digital locker to store your movies, music, and photos to and use from the cloud on devices with limited storage. I would personally love this as I can then not load my music on my iOS devices and just listen to them from the cloud when needed. That I would gladly pay $99 per year for.
iOS 4.3 Battery Issue on iPhone
You may have recalled over the weekend I wrote about how my iPhone battery drained faster than normal while I was out of town in New Orleans and Hattiesburg, MS. It seems there is an issue specific to iOS 4.3. Without getting much into the matter here you can read what I wrote about over the weekend here.
Apple sues Amazon over “App Store” name
What is it with all these tech companies suing each other recently. Now Apple is suing Amazon over them using the term “App Store” for their new Android-based store. Apple, your quickly becoming what I despise in Microsoft...stop that or I’m going Android...Ok maybe not, but still chill!
iMac’s with Sandy Bridge, Thunderbolt in May?
A rumor from a CNet reporter speculates that a revised iMac with Sandy Bridge processors and Thunderbolt technology maybe coming in May. So if you are in the market for an iMac, you may want to wait for now.
Steve Jobs: iPod classic not Going Anywhere
Rumors of its death are greatly exaggerated according to Steve Jobs who says the iPod classic will indeed be around for a while (unlike the Zune).
Apple to License AirPlay?
This is an interesting bit of news that hints that Apple may license AirPlay to TV manufacturers. This makes a lot of sense and reminds me of how Microsoft licensed its Sync feature to Ford in their cars (see I did say one nice thing about Microsoft here.) It will be interesting to see how this will come about and who will adopt it.
Wife says no, Apple says yes to iPad 2
Finally, a lighthearted piece of news as Apple reportedly send a customer a FREE iPad 2 after his wife made him return the one he bought back to the Apple Store where he put on a sticky note “Wife said no”. The customer received the iPad from Apple with a sticky that read “Apple says Yes”. That is just awesome and is a reason that despite Apple’s ego, they are still a company dear to my heart.
iOS App Reviews
Boxcar (FREE) - First off I need to credit this find to Erik J. Fisher of GSPN’s Social Media Serenity. What this app does is unify all your notifications from Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz, Foursquare, Google Voice, Gowalla and many others, in one place! It works like a charm and they also offer an iPad version as well.
Osfoora ($2.99) - I have heard Cliff Ravenscraft mention how much he loves Osfoora so I decided to finally give it a try and I must say I am impressed! The home screen offers a robust set of features for Twitter. You can see who is tweeting nearby, what the trends are like, your favorite tweets, and lists. The only thing it doesn’t have is push notifications when someone mentions you which lead me to Boxcar. Again there is an iPad version as well for $3.99. From the compose window you have the option of attaching your location, a song you are listening to, photo and video share, and of course hash tag support. What does that mean? Well if you are using a hash tag frequently, it will save the hash tag so when you compose a message, you press the hash tag button and select the tag and it will auto insert it at the end of your post. Pretty cool!
iTalk Recorder (FREE) - A nice little audio recording app is iTalk by Griffin Technology. It will record your audio into different variations of AIFF which you can then email or place in your Drop box account. It works pretty well if you can’t afford a digital audio recorder like an Edirol or Zoom H2. The only downside is it only encodes in AIFF so no support for WAV or MP3 and you will need an application like GarageBand or Audacity to convert to those formats and compress to a more reasonable size to use in a podcast. In addition they have a $2 version if you don’t like ads.
Well, that is going to do it for this edition of AppleTalk Thursday. See you all next week for another installment and thanks for reading.
Verizon iPhone Update
It has been six weeks since Verizon began selling the iPhone and already they have snared nearly 13% of the iPhone market...not to shabby. Additionally, more Verizon iPhone users are satisfied than AT&T iPhone users which does prove one thing to AT&T..it’s the network stupid! Which is why AT&T is buying up T-Mobile to better compete with the Verizon network going forward which is a very impressive network.
Apple reaches out to Japan Employees
Apple CEO Steve Jobs has reached out to Apple’s employees in Japan after the devastating earthquake to offer the employees time off and any supplies it needs. On a related note, Kevin Rose from Digg received an email from an employee of an Apple Store in Japan who tells of how the store became a gathering point for people to communicate with families and to see just what was going on. The email is very much a good read and I highly recommend to take the time and read it on Kevin’s blog.
NFC coming to iPhone 5 after all?
These stories seem to go back and forth on the next iPhone in terms of both NFC and LTE capability. Now it seems that NFC will be coming to the iPhone 5. As I have covered here previously, NFC is short for Near Field Communication and is seen as a way to create a digital wallet to basically use your iPhone to purchase things by waving it as a capture device for payment. If you go to Exxon for example you might be familiar with their SpeedPass system where a little peg on your keychain is tied to a credit card or debit card of your choice to swipe and pay for your gas. That is what this does although it does have more possibilities beyond digital payments. One day I will post a thorough breakdown on NFC and for that matter LTE (4G). Other speculation about the next iPhone is an aluminum backing and a bigger screen.
New York Times goes InApp Subscription based
Apple’s controversial InApp subscription model has scored a big customer in the New York Times which will be going to a subscription based model for its digital content both in website and iOS app content. But if you are expecting something similar to what The Daily charges, then you are in for a sticker shock.
That is a high price for me considering I am not a power reader of the Times. But they are offering free articles up to a certain number for users, however once you exceed that number, you have to pay up.
MobileMe rebirth in April?
With the launch of Apple’s North Carolina data center just around the corner, there is new reports that Apple will precent its new MobileMe service soon and what it will offer. The constant seems to be a digital locker to store your movies, music, and photos to and use from the cloud on devices with limited storage. I would personally love this as I can then not load my music on my iOS devices and just listen to them from the cloud when needed. That I would gladly pay $99 per year for.
iOS 4.3 Battery Issue on iPhone
You may have recalled over the weekend I wrote about how my iPhone battery drained faster than normal while I was out of town in New Orleans and Hattiesburg, MS. It seems there is an issue specific to iOS 4.3. Without getting much into the matter here you can read what I wrote about over the weekend here.
Apple sues Amazon over “App Store” name
What is it with all these tech companies suing each other recently. Now Apple is suing Amazon over them using the term “App Store” for their new Android-based store. Apple, your quickly becoming what I despise in Microsoft...stop that or I’m going Android...Ok maybe not, but still chill!
iMac’s with Sandy Bridge, Thunderbolt in May?
A rumor from a CNet reporter speculates that a revised iMac with Sandy Bridge processors and Thunderbolt technology maybe coming in May. So if you are in the market for an iMac, you may want to wait for now.
Steve Jobs: iPod classic not Going Anywhere
Rumors of its death are greatly exaggerated according to Steve Jobs who says the iPod classic will indeed be around for a while (unlike the Zune).
Apple to License AirPlay?
This is an interesting bit of news that hints that Apple may license AirPlay to TV manufacturers. This makes a lot of sense and reminds me of how Microsoft licensed its Sync feature to Ford in their cars (see I did say one nice thing about Microsoft here.) It will be interesting to see how this will come about and who will adopt it.
Wife says no, Apple says yes to iPad 2
Finally, a lighthearted piece of news as Apple reportedly send a customer a FREE iPad 2 after his wife made him return the one he bought back to the Apple Store where he put on a sticky note “Wife said no”. The customer received the iPad from Apple with a sticky that read “Apple says Yes”. That is just awesome and is a reason that despite Apple’s ego, they are still a company dear to my heart.
iOS App Reviews
Boxcar (FREE) - First off I need to credit this find to Erik J. Fisher of GSPN’s Social Media Serenity. What this app does is unify all your notifications from Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz, Foursquare, Google Voice, Gowalla and many others, in one place! It works like a charm and they also offer an iPad version as well.
Osfoora ($2.99) - I have heard Cliff Ravenscraft mention how much he loves Osfoora so I decided to finally give it a try and I must say I am impressed! The home screen offers a robust set of features for Twitter. You can see who is tweeting nearby, what the trends are like, your favorite tweets, and lists. The only thing it doesn’t have is push notifications when someone mentions you which lead me to Boxcar. Again there is an iPad version as well for $3.99. From the compose window you have the option of attaching your location, a song you are listening to, photo and video share, and of course hash tag support. What does that mean? Well if you are using a hash tag frequently, it will save the hash tag so when you compose a message, you press the hash tag button and select the tag and it will auto insert it at the end of your post. Pretty cool!
iTalk Recorder (FREE) - A nice little audio recording app is iTalk by Griffin Technology. It will record your audio into different variations of AIFF which you can then email or place in your Drop box account. It works pretty well if you can’t afford a digital audio recorder like an Edirol or Zoom H2. The only downside is it only encodes in AIFF so no support for WAV or MP3 and you will need an application like GarageBand or Audacity to convert to those formats and compress to a more reasonable size to use in a podcast. In addition they have a $2 version if you don’t like ads.
Well, that is going to do it for this edition of AppleTalk Thursday. See you all next week for another installment and thanks for reading.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
AppleTalk Thursday #13
Hello everybody and welcome to another edition of AppleTalk Thursday. Last Friday the iPad 2 went on sale and quickly sold out as expected. Let’s see what is going on this week in the world of Apple!
Adobe Finds Backdoor for Flash into iOS Devices
Adobe has released a Flash to HTML5 conversion tool called Wallaby. What it does is convert Flash-based artwork and animation files (.fla) into HTML5 when viewed via mobile Safari on iOS devices. Some might say that Adobe found a way to get Flash into iOS devices but I see it as an admission by Adobe that HTML5 is clearly the standard going forward.
iOS In-App Purchasing Requiring Password Now
Last week I discussed new features in iOS 4.3, one of the minor changes is when you make an in-app purchase now, it will require your account password. This is great news for parents who’s children had apps with in-app purchasing that were ringing up mom and dad’s charge card (Smurfs).
More Evidence of Possible Bigger iPhone 5 Screen
A new image has leaked out showing an iPhone 5 design diagram that hints at a larger display screen for the next generation iPhone. Seems to match up with other speculation as well. We shall find out in June or July I guess.
How to get the iMovie iPad app on First Gen iPad
Last week Apple released an updated iMove iOS app. Of course the biggest update to it is the ability to run on an iPad or more specifically, an iPad 2. But never fear fellow iPad generation 1 owners, there actually is a way to run iMove on your iPad. So if your feeling daring, give it a try.
iPad Continues to Crush the Tablet Competition
This report came out prior to Friday’s iPad 2 release, but as you can tell the iPad commands a huge lead in tablet market-share and based on the numbers on iPad 2 sales, those numbers will grow even bigger. Another interesting bit of information comes from Piper Jaffray which says that according to their survey, about 70% of iPad buyers are new customers to the tablet device. One Wall Street analyst has gone so far to state that the iPad now has an “insurmountable lead”.
GarageBand for the iPad
With the new iPad 2 came a release of GarageBand for both the first and new iPad models. I played around with it myself and put together an awful hard rock tune. The folks at TUAW have a nice review on it as well. It is definitely for musicians and lacks the podcast feature found in the desktop version. But playing the drums is quite fun I must admit.
White iPhone coming in the Spring
With the released of a White iPad 2, many are wondering if this is the year we will finally see the long promised white iPhone 4. Well according to Phil Schiller via Twitter, it is indeed coming in the Spring and Phil goes on to state that “it is a beauty.”
Jon Bon Jovi hates iTunes
How many times have we heard this one, burned out rocker complaining how (fill in new technology) is killing music. We heard it before when the cassette and later the CD came out, we heard it from Garth Brooks who is too stubborn to put his music in any digital store, and now Jon Bon Jovi is saying that Steve Jobs is the antiChrist..Ok he didn’t say that, but he did say that Steve is personally responsible for killing music. Jon, go blow it out your *bleep*!!! Ok first off iTunes came about 2003 about 4 years after Napster. Maybe do your homework next time about digital downloads and how they came about Jersey boy!
Archive your email in Apple Mail
If you use Gmail then no doubt you are familiar with the feature to just archive your email messages and not have to worry about which folder they are in. Well, thanks to a little plugin, you can now do the same with your Apple Mail. Now me personally, I use Gmail via the web but if you use Mail then this may be a handy thing for you to try. MacWorld has an article of its own on how to better integrate your Gmail into Mail
Time Warner brings TV watching to the iPad...sort of
Time Warner has rolled out a new app for the iPad that allows you to watch a limited number of channels IF you are at home and using their internet. It will also allow you to change the channels on the TV as a remote and set DVR recordings which is similar to other TV provider services.
The Zune is Dead...Long Live the iPod!
Microsoft this week pulled the plug on the underperforming Zune media player and wannabe iPod. Although it does sound like they will maintain the Zune Marketplace for the Windows Phone 7 devices so if you have a Zune then the 2 of you will still be able to get your music that you have to pay a monthly subscription for to listen to...ownership beats rent people!
MacBundle Deal
Finally, check out this great bundle deal! Parallels itself would be worth $49 alone but there is over $300 in software here!
Well, that is going to do it for this week’s AppleTalk Thursday. Be back next week for more exciting Apple news!
Adobe Finds Backdoor for Flash into iOS Devices
Adobe has released a Flash to HTML5 conversion tool called Wallaby. What it does is convert Flash-based artwork and animation files (.fla) into HTML5 when viewed via mobile Safari on iOS devices. Some might say that Adobe found a way to get Flash into iOS devices but I see it as an admission by Adobe that HTML5 is clearly the standard going forward.
iOS In-App Purchasing Requiring Password Now
Last week I discussed new features in iOS 4.3, one of the minor changes is when you make an in-app purchase now, it will require your account password. This is great news for parents who’s children had apps with in-app purchasing that were ringing up mom and dad’s charge card (Smurfs).
More Evidence of Possible Bigger iPhone 5 Screen
A new image has leaked out showing an iPhone 5 design diagram that hints at a larger display screen for the next generation iPhone. Seems to match up with other speculation as well. We shall find out in June or July I guess.
How to get the iMovie iPad app on First Gen iPad
Last week Apple released an updated iMove iOS app. Of course the biggest update to it is the ability to run on an iPad or more specifically, an iPad 2. But never fear fellow iPad generation 1 owners, there actually is a way to run iMove on your iPad. So if your feeling daring, give it a try.
iPad Continues to Crush the Tablet Competition
This report came out prior to Friday’s iPad 2 release, but as you can tell the iPad commands a huge lead in tablet market-share and based on the numbers on iPad 2 sales, those numbers will grow even bigger. Another interesting bit of information comes from Piper Jaffray which says that according to their survey, about 70% of iPad buyers are new customers to the tablet device. One Wall Street analyst has gone so far to state that the iPad now has an “insurmountable lead”.
GarageBand for the iPad
With the new iPad 2 came a release of GarageBand for both the first and new iPad models. I played around with it myself and put together an awful hard rock tune. The folks at TUAW have a nice review on it as well. It is definitely for musicians and lacks the podcast feature found in the desktop version. But playing the drums is quite fun I must admit.
White iPhone coming in the Spring
With the released of a White iPad 2, many are wondering if this is the year we will finally see the long promised white iPhone 4. Well according to Phil Schiller via Twitter, it is indeed coming in the Spring and Phil goes on to state that “it is a beauty.”
Jon Bon Jovi hates iTunes
How many times have we heard this one, burned out rocker complaining how (fill in new technology) is killing music. We heard it before when the cassette and later the CD came out, we heard it from Garth Brooks who is too stubborn to put his music in any digital store, and now Jon Bon Jovi is saying that Steve Jobs is the antiChrist..Ok he didn’t say that, but he did say that Steve is personally responsible for killing music. Jon, go blow it out your *bleep*!!! Ok first off iTunes came about 2003 about 4 years after Napster. Maybe do your homework next time about digital downloads and how they came about Jersey boy!
Archive your email in Apple Mail
If you use Gmail then no doubt you are familiar with the feature to just archive your email messages and not have to worry about which folder they are in. Well, thanks to a little plugin, you can now do the same with your Apple Mail. Now me personally, I use Gmail via the web but if you use Mail then this may be a handy thing for you to try. MacWorld has an article of its own on how to better integrate your Gmail into Mail
Time Warner brings TV watching to the iPad...sort of
Time Warner has rolled out a new app for the iPad that allows you to watch a limited number of channels IF you are at home and using their internet. It will also allow you to change the channels on the TV as a remote and set DVR recordings which is similar to other TV provider services.
The Zune is Dead...Long Live the iPod!
Microsoft this week pulled the plug on the underperforming Zune media player and wannabe iPod. Although it does sound like they will maintain the Zune Marketplace for the Windows Phone 7 devices so if you have a Zune then the 2 of you will still be able to get your music that you have to pay a monthly subscription for to listen to...ownership beats rent people!
MacBundle Deal
Finally, check out this great bundle deal! Parallels itself would be worth $49 alone but there is over $300 in software here!
Well, that is going to do it for this week’s AppleTalk Thursday. Be back next week for more exciting Apple news!
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