FYI: Path uploads your iPhone’s entire address book to their servers
Blogger Arun Thampi discovered something that may or may not sit right about the free social media app Path while packet sniffing the app last night. Upon first installing the app and registering for an account, Path sends each one of your contacts in your address book to their server via a. plist. The .plist includes full names, phone numbers, and e-mails.
Path makes the call “https://api.path.com/3/contacts/add” when you first create an account, and it uploads all your contacts to its server. In most people’s mind, this obviously makes them feel a little uncomfortable. Thampi details the technical aspects of this, and how you can recreate it yourself, in his blog post.
Path’s Cofounder and CEO Dave Morin commented on the situation and said iPhone users will soon be able to opt-out of the setting in an update that will roll out to the App Store shortly. Nevertheless, does that really change anything? He did not really explain why Path is doing this, and your entire address book is still on their servers. You can read Morin’s comment after the break:
Apple modifies EULA for iBooks: Lays no claim to content, allows authors to distribute elsewhere
Apple just updated its End User License Agreement for the iBooks Author application, and the changes clearly outline the Cupertino, Calif.-based Company only requires .iBooks formatted products created in iBooks Author to sell through the iBookstore.
With that said, Apple aims to sell the packaged format without claiming the content nor restricting where else authors can distribute the content.
iBooks Author released alongside iBooks Textbook last month and controversy immediately brewed over its terms and conditions, which many claimed infringed upon software rights and imposed unjust requirements…
Readdle’s new Remarks app offers PDF annotating, accurate handwriting
Readdle released a new application for the iPad called “Remarks“ that offers incredibly accurate handwriting recognition, PDF annotating, and more. At the heart of Remarks is PDF annotating, and PDFs can be imported by way of the iPad’s iTunes File Sharing feature or through opening the PDF with an email to the iPad. All of your PDFs are stored in an iWork for iOS-like file system, and a folder system is available.
The interface, though, is powerful and feature-packed, and it is simple for PDF annotating. A user simply taps to open a PDF and then they can do actions such as handwriting, highlighting, panning, and creating shapes like circles and squares similar to what one does in OS X’s built-in PDF annotating application Preview. Remarks also allows you to import photos directly from within the application to place in a PDF, and it also allows users to email, print, and open the created or annotated PDFs in other iOS applications.
While Remarks have been a fantastic PDF annotator in our testing, the marquee feature—perhaps— is its handwriting integration. In our tests, Remarks’ handwriting software is well crafted, very accurate, fast, and features no lag. A great bonus is being able to rest your hand on the display of your iPad without writing anything accidentally. Writing with Remarks with a stylus offers perfect iPad handwriting, but writing with your finger works great as well. Readdle said it is looking to bring more features soon to Remarks, including Dropbox and other cloud storage system support.
Remarks is available for the iPad on the App Store for $4.99.
Jumsoft releases first collection of iBooks Author themes with ‘Book Palette 1.0′
Jumsoft has just released Book Palette 1.0 on the Mac App Store– a collection of templates and themes for Apple’s recently released iBooks Author platform. The first release of many to come includes 10 templates from business to cookbooks that all include customizable layouts, covers, chapter pages, tables of contents, glossary pages, and everything included in the iBooks author app. It looks like Apple isn’t going to have an issue with developers selling additional add-on content for iBooks Author through the Mac App Store.
Although Jumsoft has designed the templates to be ready to go with the default designs and layouts, they explained just how customizable they are:
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Avid releases iPad version of FCPX competitor ‘Avid Studio’
Avid, the makers of the music industry’s leading DAW called ”Pro Tools”, just dropped an iPad version of its pro-sumer Final Cut Pro competitor known as ”Avid Studio.” Although the latest Final Cut Pro X update brought multicam editing, broadcast monitoring, and many of the features pro users demanded be re-implemented, the Avid Studio iPad app shows why Apple should and most likely will release FCPX for iPad.
The app is available from the App Store now for $4.99, significantly less than the desktop version that retails for $169.99, but the app will increase to $8 after an initial 30-day introductory period. The Avid Studio app is the company’s first video editing suite for iPad and aims to provide most of the features offered through the desktop version.
Users will get the familiar timeline and storyboard, but new gestures will allow them to pinch and squeeze to scale images and videos, and arrange edits on the timeline for picture-in-picture effects. Users of the desktop software will also appreciate the Precision Trimmer, Razor Blade tool for on the fly cuts, and the ability to export projects easily to Avid Studio on the desktop. Projects can be uploaded to iCloud, and finished projects can be shared to YouTube, Facebook, and by email from within the app. Unlike the desktop version, there is no Flash export option.
New app ‘The Lotto Machine’ proves physics engines improve software
Prominent iOS application developer, and friend of the website, Steven Troughton-Smith released a neat new iPhone and iPod touch application called “The Lotto Machine“ that is a random number generator. Besides the great design, the application is unique because of its physics engine. The physics engine is best demonstrated when a user holds down the “Hold to spin!” button that cranks the wheel. The new application also shows off its accelerometer usage when a user tilts their device. As you can see in the video below, as a user moves their phone around in space, the lottery balls also move:
Sprint launches official ‘Sprint Zone Mobile’ iPhone app
Since the iPhone 4S landed on Sprint in October, users have not had access to an official Sprint iOS app to manage their account similar to what other iPhone carriers provide. Now the carrier has launched its new “Sprint Mobile Zone” app (via SprintFeed) that allows users to manage their online accounts, access promotions and Sprint news, and more. Despite account access seemingly just serving websites from the carrier’s existing browser experience, in contrast to the un-installable carrier apps on Android, this is how all carrier apps should be.
In addition to the features mentioned above for Sprint customers, both Sprint and non-Sprint iPhone users will be able to access “Device Info” with the usual battery statistics, data connections information, and available resources. There is also an Apple and Sprint store locator and quick links to Sprint support and Apple Care. Get the free app now for iOS devices running iOS 5.0 and up (iTunes link).
‘Highlight’ app gives a name to the stranger nearby, brings social network to life
So, you are sitting in a coffee shop and looking around you —wondering whom the blonde-haired person is sitting by the window or even the bearded hipster serving the latte. Well, “Highlight” is a free social network app for iOS devices that can now let you creep the world within your vicinity.
Facebook helps users to organize online relationships while exploring professional networks, but it cannot help them interact with those in the “real” world. Whether social networkers are in a –well– coffee shop, or even a restaurant, clothing store, entertainment event or conference, strangers constantly surround them. Anyone is connectable through shared interests or mutual friends, but it is difficult to know who is nearby.
To change this circumstance, install Highlight onto an iPhone and connect to Facebook. The app will alert users to other Highlight users up to a block and half away. From there, profiles with information pulled from Facebook are viewable, and Highlight users can even send text messages to such profiles. The app essentially helps folks meet new people, while refreshing memory about past relationships and alerting users to friends who are nearby.
More information is available below.
For iOS users without Siri, there is Evi
We have seen Siri clones in the Android Market trying to pass themselves off as the real thing, and some Siri alternatives making their way to the Windows Phone Marketplace. Evi, on the other hand, might actually be the first true Siri competitor/alternative for Android and non-iPhone 4S iOS users.
Available on the App Store for 99 cents and free to Android users on the Android Market, Evi is the work of True Knowledge and its “core semantic search technology” better known as The True Knowledge Answer Engine. The 99-cent price tag on iOS is apparently to cover the cost of using Nuance voice recognition (the same voice recognition tech as Siri), which is not used in the Android version.
The app’s iTunes page explained Evi is capable of returning local data for the United Kingdom (along with the United States), which has been a complaint from U.K. Siri users since the iPhone 4S launch. According to TechCrunch, the app uses “an ontology of tens of thousands of classes into which” every possible user command can be recognized. True Knowledge said the app contains “almost a billion ‘facts’ (machine understandable bits of knowledge)” with the ability to infer trillions if necessary. It also reportedly uses all the expected sources, such as local results from Yelp, third-party websites, traditional web searches, and APIs.
While as of yet Evi is incapable of integrating with Calendar and Reminders like Siri, TechCrunch pointed out it sometimes provides more accurate and useful results for certain types of questions. Siri requests to search the web for an answer when users ask certain questions, such as “How do I make apple pie?” Evi, however, would provide a list of recipes with relevant links to that specific question. TechCrunch highlighted another example where Evi excels:
Bring Cover Flow to your iPhone and iPad’s dock with Overflow jailbreak tweak
Noted jailbreak and App Store application developer Adam Bell added another great tweak to his arsenal: Overflow. The jailbreak-only adjustment brings the Cover Flow effect (like swiping through album covers when rotating the iPhone) to the iOS home screen’s application dock. As you can see in the video after the break, it works great with Chpwn’s Infinidock tweak —an alteration to iOS that allows users to store an infinite amount of apps in the dock. Bell’s tweak costs $0.99 in the Cydia store, and it works on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. You can watch a video of the tweak in action after the break:
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