Apps & updates: Hulu Plus, Time Warner Cable, Men In Black 3, Fox Business, more

Jordan Kahn

A few notable apps and updates landed in the App Store today including a significant update to the Hulu Plus iOS app, Retina optimizations for the Time Warner Cable app, and the official Men In Black 3 game from Gameloft. A full list of noteworthy app releases and updates from today is below:

Hulu Plus: The most significant app update today goes to the universal Hulu Plus iOS app. The new update brings a number of improvements, including: a “re-engineered, optimized video player”, support for the new iPad’s Retina display, and enhancements to AirPlay mirroring, and HDMI support. The update also includes a new UI for iPad and search options for new shows by genre.

Time Warner Cable TV: Much like just about every other iPad app update that takes advantage of the third-generation iPad’s Retina display, the TWC TV app for iPhone and iPad was updated today with optimizations for Retina displays—in addition to the usual bug fixes and performance enhancements.

Men in Black 3: Gameloft just released the official iOS tie-in for the new Men in Black 3 movie that appears to be a top-down strategy game of sorts. It is available as a free universal download for iPhone or iPad. It is already live in the New Zealand store and should hit the U.S. and elsewhere soon.

Fox Business for iPad: Financial news and videos from the Fox Business app get landscape mode, a new Data Wizard feature for tracking market activity, and news sub-sections to “drill down deeper into the news that matters to you.”

NBC Sports Talk for iPad: A decent update for the iOS app that brings the latest news and analysis from the NBC Sports network today adds support for Retina displays. It also includes the addition of CollegeBasketballTalk and ProSoccerTalk with other small UI tweaks.

NASA App for iPhone: NASA’s official iPhone app was updated with its biggest redesign since launching in 2009. The update includes a new interface, weather forecasts, a ton of new content and programs, and new features like the ability to favorite content and bookmark images.

CNN App for iPhone: CNN has a few iOS apps, but the latest update to its CNN App for iPhone turns it into one global consolidated app that offers CNNMoney and Opinion headlines, CNN blog stories, and the rest of the network into a single app including both U.S. and global news.

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‘MLB.com At Bat 2012′ breaks 3 million downloads; 800,000 streams a day

Jake Smith

As we noted in February, “MLB.com At Bat 2012” launched to bring baseball fanatics scores, news, and analysis for free. The app also includes an in-app subscription of $14.99 (or $2.99 a month) that provides in-game audio. However, if you are a huge fan, you can pay the $120 a year subscription for in-game video.

MLB’s Advanced Media office announced today (via GigaOm) that the app reached 3 million downloads just a week into the MLB’s 2012 season. Seeing a ton of success, the 2012 version of the app was the top sports app on both iOS and Android for the past few weeks. There were also 800,000 audio and video live streams combined every day. It took four months for those numbers to be reached last season.

“MLB.com at Bat” is definitely a unique app, providing its fans with fair prices to follow their favorite teams. The NBA also offers a similar app for free with in-app subscription, so you can watch all the league’s games. The MLB and NBA also both have an app available on the Apple TV that allows you to watch games if you pay for each respective subscription.

The new user-interface and in-app purchase model is most likely why the MLB app is off to a great start. Moreover, with 800,000 streams going a day, it looks like a good majority of those 3 million users are paying for the app.

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FTC criticizes poor privacy disclosures in apps for kids, says industry must improve standards

E. Betters

Let’s take a quick break from the hordes of Mountain Lion OSX news to talk about privacy issues within apps…again. However, this time the spotlight is on children’s apps in both Apple’s App Store and Google’s Android Marketplace.

The Federal Trade Commission released a report today (PDF) based on a survey that found apps for children do not fully disclose the types of data collected nor do they adequately educate parents about data harvesting.

The consumer protection agency scrutinized privacy policies, recommended each developer give comprehensible disclosures on how data is accrued and shared, including whether children’s data is linked to social network apps, and it even mentioned conducting a six-month review on disclosures and using enforcement if needed. The report focused on the two main app stores themselves and requested more be done to tell children and their parents about privacy concerns…

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Apple’s iOS problem: Contacts uploading is just the tip of the iceberg. Apps can upload all your photos, calendars or record conversations

Seth Weintraub

Apple responded today to the contacts-sharing issue with a statement indicating it plans to put some form of a setting on contact data that would allow users to control who views the data, similar to the way Apple locks down location data.

“Apps that collect or transmit a user’s contact data without their prior permission are in violation of our guidelines. We’re working to make this even better for our customers, and as we have done with location services, any app wishing to access contact data will require explicit user approval in a future software release.”

Congress became involved and probably motivated the move, but the legislative body is not going to like what it hears.

The problem is that iOS apps not only have access to a user’s contacts database (including addresses and notes), but apps also have full and unencumbered access to everything in the iOS app sandbox, such as pictures, music, movies, calendars, and a host of other data. Any of this content is literally open for developers to freely transmit to their own servers while apps are open.

(note that pictures with geotags will pop up a Location dialog which can be averted in code with some well known tricks)

Moreover, approved apps also have access to the iPhone’s camera and microphone, so apps can also take pictures and make recordings without permission (although, this would be easy to detect by the user with the light from the front camera or red bar during audio). Photos, videos, and audio are transmittable securely or insecurely up to servers that you and Apple do not know about.

To developers, this is no big secret. It is not trivial, but putting that kind of functionality into an app is straightforward and only uses Apple’s publicly available and blessed developer APIs (which means this stuff will not likely be detected by Apple’s App Store approval process).

Obviously, shady developers and even government entities are probably already using such apps to gather information. Therefore, these are some scenarios:

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‘Highlight’ app gives a name to the stranger nearby, brings social network to life

E. Betters

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.

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ION Audio unveils three new iCade products at CES; iPhone and iPod Touch now supported in handheld options

E. Betters

The iCade is an attachable accessory for the Apple iPad that functions as a portable arcade cabinet, but now the device’s manufacturer unveiled three new products under the popular line that toggle the iPhone and iPod Touch.

ION Audio showcased the products at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The manufacturer recreated the original arcade setup by ditching the cabinet exterior in favor of landscape support.

The first product is the iCade Mobile for iPhone 4/4S or iPod Touch. According to Engadget, it is a handheld with gaming buttons and a D-pad, which subsequently adds 1.5-inches onto each side of the iOS mobile device. The iCade Mobile also allows users to switch between portrait and landscape mode. ION said it expects about 100 games to be compatible with the product, and the retail price is currently set at $79.99 USD.

Pictures for each new iCade product are displayed after the break.

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