If you’ve jailbroken your iOS device in order to enjoy wonderful apps Apple banned from the App Store, know you will lose them each time you upgrade to a newer firmware because iTunes doesn’t sync them by default. That’s why for many jailbreakers a firmware upgrade usually entails a tedious process of re-downloading and re-installing all their Cydia apps. Luckily, there’s an app for that. Called xBackup, it’s an effective way to backup and restore your jailbroken apps literally with a tap. As a result, firmware updates are a breeze with this nifty app…
Remember Microsoft Courier? Admit it, the folded dual-screen design and the resulting user interface around it was an eye-opener in the pre-iPad era. Too bad it was just a concept, right? Well, two developers decided to pick up where Microsoft left off and bring this once hyped Courier functionality to Apple’s device. They explain:
The creativity, productivity and attractive user interface coalesce into one outstanding product. The ingenious split interface design allows users to interact with multiple apps simultaneously in the company of Taposé collections.
Taposé is still in its infancy and developers welcome your financial support as they take time off of work to finish the project (something’s gotta pay for the rent and food). Features description and developer videos right after the break… Expand Expanding Close
Partially resolving a dispute over Apple’s tight iOS subscription terms that include standard 30 percent cut and opt-in forwarding of subscriber information, magazine publisher Time Inc. has cut a deal with the iPhone maker that will see them put free iPad editions for existing print subscribers on the App Store. The development, a result of high-level meetings between Time executives and iTunes chief Eddy Cue, is being described as “a sign the two sides are moving closer,” according to a Wall Street Journalstory.
Starting Monday, subscribers to Sports Illustrated, Time and Fortune magazines will be able to access the iPad editions via the apps, which will be able to authenticate them as subscribers. Time Inc.’s People magazine already had such an arrangement, but readers of most publications have had to pay separately for the iPad version regardless of their subscriber status.
Apple’s carefully-worded Q&A on Location Data published in response to the location tracking PR fiasco has fell on deaf ears with US Congressmen and Senators. Representatives from both Apple and Google will testify at a Congressional hearing on May 10 to explain how they gather and use location data from users.
Meanwhile, carriers – who are required by law to track users – are taking notice of a new wind blowing through Senate on location privacy issues and are taking preemptive actions. So, what does Verizon Wireless – the nation’s greatest wireless operator that holds onto your location data and other info for seven years – plan to do?
Stickers, man! You read that right, the big red carrier plans to put location-tracking stickers on phones, like the one you see above provided as an illustration in Verizon’s letter to Senators Ed Markey and Joe Barton. It reads:
This device is capable of determining its (and your) physical, geographical location and can associate this location data with other customer information. To limit access to location information by others, refer to the User Guide for Location settings and be cautious when downloading, accessing or using location applications and services.
Something tells me this will be the first thing people remove when they get a new phone. Feel free to file this one under the “oh no, they didn’t” category.
Isn’t it high time you upgraded your mobile browsing experience? Introducing Terra, an alternative web browser for your iPad from the creators of ReaddleDocs office suite. Think Safari with a few tweaks thrown in for a good measure. You can go full screen with a tap to make full use of iPad’s larger canvas and enjoy web content without any user interface elements getting in your way. Tap the icon in the uper right corner and boom – all your browsing controls re-appear.
Another cool feature is the offline browsing mode where Terra saves the page at hand – with all images preserved – for later viewing when there’s no Internet access available. Another useful enhancement is tabbed browsing mode that lets you quickly switch between open tabs using a three-finger swipe. The list of cool stuff doesn’t end here… Expand Expanding Close
It is estimated that one in ten iPhones out there are jailbroken. That is, their software is modified to run apps Apple doesn’t want you to know about. For the vast majority of remaining 90 percent, however, jailbreaking is a borderline underground thing and a big no-no. And who can blame them? Apple was vigilant about jailbreakers and it got a little help from AT&T, too, until federal regulators last summer declared jailbreaking legal. Still, many people didn’t get the memo.
That’s why Jay Freeman, also known as Saurik and the man who created Cydia, an unofficial app store for unsanctioned software, set out to educate those not in the known about the benefits of jailbreaking. Saurik sat down with Robert Scoble at the Mobile Connections conference who produced the above video. Would you free your phone from the clutches of curated App Store now that you’ve learned about the benefits of jailbreaking? Meet us in comments.
Once considered niche products and dismissed as a passing fad, tablet devices lead by the omnipresent iPad and dedicated e-book readers such as Amazon’s widely popular Kindle are affecting traditional book publishing, says a survey by research firm ISH iSupply.
Book revenue for US publishers, including both e-books and paper books, will decrease at a compound annual growth rate of three percent from 2010 to 2014. This marks a shift from the previous period of 2005 to 2010, when revenue grew slightly. Total book revenues will fall to $22.7 billion in 2014, down from $25 billion in 2010.
The decline in paper book printing, distribution and sales will be “frightening” for print die-hards, says iSuppli analyst Steve Mather. He compared this disruption to a similar turmoil the music and movie businesses had gone through amid the rise of digital content stores such as iTunes and Amazon. At the epicenter of this change is, once again, Apple…
Unnamed industry sources have come forward, confirming Apple’s rumored purchase of the iCloud.com domain from Swedish cloud computing company Xcerion, writes John Paczkowski on The Wall Street Journal’s Digital Daily blog.
Apple has indeed acquired the domain name iCloud.com from Sweden-based hybrid cloud computing outfit Xcerion. Sources in position to know confirm that Apple bought the domain as GigaOm first reported Thursday, though they declined to say whether its rumored $4.5 million price tag was accurate.
Looks like Apple’s rumored new cloud service is slowly coming into full view…
Matching Apple’s vertical integration is anything but easy, as Apple’s rivals in the tablet space have learned – which is pretty much everyone these days. Tablet makers are now facing likely product delays due to low manufacturing volumes caused by the shortages of a number of important tablet components as a result of Japan crisis, reports Taiwanese trade publication DigiTimes:
The market had originally expected the tight supply of components and key materials caused by the Japan earthquake will ease in May. Contrary to the expectations, the crisis of the possible interruption of the supply chain now is likely to emerge in the second half of May, indicated the sources.
First-tier notebook vendors have apparently lowered their tablet PC shipments and are now expected to deliver less than five million units in 2011, combined. The components in short supply include NAND flash memory chips, gyroscope sensors from STMicroelectronics and AKM, cover glass, capacitors, chip-resistors and bismaleimide-triazine resin. This might have seriously affected Motorola’s Xoom, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab and Asustek’d Eee Pad Transfomer, the report notes.
Fans gather outside Beijing Apple store for white iPhone 4 launch yesterday.
Just a day following the arrival of white iPhone 4, Apple’s been seen increasing shipping estimates for online orders in several countries to five business days, an increase from the previous estimate of 3-5 days. If you place a white iPhone 4 order via the online Apple store in Italy, UK, Spain, France, Ireland and many other countries, you’ll have to wait at least five business days for delivery.
The different-colored iPhone drew crowds in Hong Kong, Singapore and China who formed long lines to get their hands on the handset. The Hong Kong launch attracted hundreds of iPhone scalpers. No word of possible supply problems in those countries at press time, though. Shipping estimates for the US and are still in the 3-5 days range. If history is an indication, Americans will be the last to feel the effects of what appears to be constrained white iPhone 4 supply.
When Apple was chasing Microsoft last year in market capitalization, a lot of people were pointing out that the software maker would continue beating the Cupertino company in terms of profitability. Well, Microsoft just posted their quarterly earnings yesterday. Despite record first-quarter numbers, their profits were significantly below the nearly $6 billion in net quarterly profit Apple posted. More precise, Microsoft reported $5.23 billion profit versus $5.99 billion for Apple.
In terms of revenue, Microsoft reported $16.43 billion versus $24.67 billion for Apple. Apple’s annualized revenue makes them a $100 billion company while Microsoft is yet to join this club. The only area where Microsoft is ahead of Apple are profit margins. Considering net profit as a percentage of revenue, Microsoft’s 32 percent margin beats Apple’s 24 percent. Of course, Windows maker makes most of its revenue selling highly profitable software products that yield high margins.
Today, a beautiful new interactive e-book hit the App Store. Entitled “Our Choice”, it is notable not just for its amazing interface but also because Apple board member, former US presidential candidate and Nobel prize winner Al Gore is credited as author. Not surprisingly, the book is basically a sequel to the Apple Keynote-heavy Inconvenient Truth as it too focuses on the effects of pollution, climate change and global warming.
What really impresses though is a high degree of interactivity and rich media features, courtesy of the innovative new digital publishing platform dubbed Push Pop Press. “Our Choice” can be yours for five bucks. The universal binary weighs in at 52.8MB and scales up nicely to iPad’s 1024-by-768 pixel resolution. See guided tour video below: Expand Expanding Close
Quarterly revenue from iPad and related products and services was $2.84 billion on sales of 4.69 million units, or nearly nine percent of the total $24.67 billion in revenues Apple reported for the entire March quarter. If sales had matched 7.33 million iPad shipped in the holiday quarter, quarterly iPad revenue could have hit $4.61 billion. Sales should grow organically in the coming weeks as manufacturing ramps up, iPad 1 channel inventory dries up and Apple expands iPad presence to new territories.
But wait, Apple is set to milk its darling for all its worth by boosting iPad margins twofold, if Credit Suisse analyst Kulbinder Garcha is to be believed. The analyst forecasts 32 million iPads this year and 55 million next year, adding:
On the question of tablet market share, Garcha currently models iPad’s slice of the market dropping to 53%, from the current 75% level. But he adds that his view could be to conservative. For one thing, he notes that it may take until 2012 for rivals to price their tablets at a discount to the iPad while still making acceptable gross margins.
Apple is growing margins because the cost of components needed to build iPad 2 is 15 percent lower compared to the original model, even with better hardware and new features added to the mix. With 15 percent smaller bill of materials Apple could significantly grow iPad 2 margins from the current 26-32 percent range to an estimated 45 percent, or more than double, the analyst argues.
Three Foxconn employees are accused of leaking the iPad 2 design to accessory maker and are being charged with it, DigiTimes reports.
Several online shopping retailers in China were able to sell iPad 2’s protective case products before the iPad 2 was even launched, leading Foxconn to suspect that there might have been some employees leaking the design of iPad 2 which it reported to the local police. The local police on December 26, 2010, arrested three employees that were suspected of leaking the design, and officially charged the three employees for violating the company’s trade secrets on March 23, 2011, the reported added.
Sprint Nextel has just reported their first quarter results, their first full quarter of Verizon iPhone availability. Despite adding more than 1.1 million total wireless net subscribers (prepaid: 846,000, postpaid: 310,000), best ever prepaid churn of 1.81 percent, and the lowest prepaid churn of 4.36 percent in over five years, they could have attracted even more customers if it weren’t for that pesky CDMA iPhone.
Sprint CEO Dan Hesse told analysts on a conference call that Verizon’s introduction of the iPhone “did have an impact on our performance for the quarter”. He would not put a dollar value to it, though. On the other hand, there are indications that CDMA iPhone sales are not currently brisk. Digitimes reports that Apple may have cut CDMA iPhone 4 orders by half to five million units, down from the ten million CDMA units originally commissioned for the entire 2011. Are potential Verizon iPhone buyers simply waiting for a next-generation iPhone?
The mythical white iPhone 4 has finally landed on store shelves, as Apple promised yesterday. This time it’s for real and long lines in Hong Kong serve as an indication that Apple may have another hit on their hands, even if they only changed the color from black to white. Having waited ten months for Apple to finally produce the elegant device, it’s understandable people don’t want to wait another day.
If you’re in the market for a white iPhone, better head to the nearest Apple store right away because online orders are estimated to ship in 3-5 business days. Ouch. Looks like all stock of white iPhones is being sent to own retail stores, carriers and third-party retailers like Walmart and Best Buy. Makes sense to avoid repeating the iPad 2 launch woes when a lot of disappointed customers left home empty-handed after having waited in the line for hours.
Jack Dorsey, the man who co-founded Twitter and Square, has managed to secure financial backing for his latter startup. The much-needed cash will be provided by Visa, one of the leading credit card brands. The funding comes on top of existing investments by Sequoia Capital and Khosla Ventures.
Square makes a handy dongle that turns your iPhone or Android phone into a mobile credit card reader. They hit the ground running when Apple put the device on sale on both its online and brick-and-mortar stores.
Apple is again all over South Park. Season 15 of the animated television series premiered yesterday and it aired with a bunch of humorous takes on Apple’s latest PR fiasco surrounding the iPhone location tracking issue. Plus, they also ridicule the iPad as the latest fashion must-have item.
Check it out in Gawker’s reel or go to the official site and watch the entire episode entitled “HUMANCENTiPAD”, it’s worth your time (sorry, they don’t allow video embedding). Plus, the episode also pokes fun of lavish Steve Jobs media presentations.
The headline won’t shock anyone following the mobile space, although there’s more to it than meets the eye. A Distimo survey, relayed by TechCrunch, shows the Android application store rocks more free programs than Apple’s App Store. Utrecht, Netherlands-based Distimo counted 134,342 free items on Android Market versus 121,845 freebies on the App Store.
Even though Apple’s store was the slowest growing mobile bazaar in March 2011, it still leads in terms of quantity and remains the most vibrant app community on the planet. The number of App Store items is approaching the 400,000 milestone (Distimo counted 367,334 apps). At current 16 percent growth rate, however, Android Market will overtake Apple’s store in app volume five months from now.
Also interesting: iPad submissions grew 12 percent in March to 75,755 apps, with an average daily revenue nearing a cool $400,000. As any iPad owner knows, a larger canvas commands premium prices ($5.36 on average for an iPad app). Another tidbit: Distimo expects BlackBerry App World to overtake Nokia’s Ovi Store by the end of next month. Some insight and more pretty charts after the break.
Did you ever wonder why it took Apple ten months to produce the white iPhone 4, which finally goes on sale tomorrow? According to The Wall Street Journal’sMobilized blog, white iPhones need UV protection. Author Ina Fried interviewed both Apple’s boss Steve Jobs and marketing honcho Phil Schiller. The latter said:
It was challenging. It’s not as simple as making something white. There’s a lot more that goes into both the material science of it–how it holds up over time…but also in how it all works with the sensors.
And here’s from Jobs:
We obviously think about this in a generic way because you have a white iPad.
Jobs also confirmed that an upcoming iOS update will address that location tracking issue that Apple earlier today characterized as a “bug” and confirmed Apple will next week testify in a Congress hearing about location-gathering practices.
Apple engineers went to great lengths to conceal the innards of the iPhone 4 with an elegant glass case that looks like a cool black monolith, but now teardown wizards over at iFixit have tweaked that design in order to expose the guts of the handset to the world. Think circuit boards, the large battery and everything else one normally doesn’t see. iFixIt’s solution rocks camera lens, the flash diffuser and bezel to ensure proper operation of the back camera and pristine appearance of your phone. Read on… Expand Expanding Close
Those ten months of delay might have paid off. The white iPhone 4, which goes on sale tomorrow, rocks a tweaked proximity sensor and slightly improved reception – if the non-scientific tests conducted by Italian-language site iSpazio are to be believed.
The above video claims that the white iPhone 4 model will automatically turn off its display when it detects an object such as your face or finger from a relatively larger distance compared to the black model which reacts to just nudging the face of the sensor.
As for the white iPhone 4 antenna performance, they noticed “a slight improvement” but it’s not conclusive. Another video after the break.
The blogosphere is abuzz this morning with Apple’s official response to the Locationgate scandal. While the company’s powerful PR machinery is in full swing trying to dodge the bullet, we have pinpointed a rather interesting line in Apple’s document entitled “Q&A on Location Data”. Before we dive into that – and for those who didn’t get the memo – Apple has confirmed a database residing on the device that contains anonymized data generated by tens of millions of iPhones sending the geo-tagged locations of nearby WiFi hotspots and cell towers.
They use it to “help your iPhone rapidly and accurately calculate its location when requested”. Storing a year’s worth of data was a “bug” that will be fixed with a forthcoming iOS update. “We don’t think the iPhone needs to store more than seven days of this data,” the company wrote. But Apple may be planning to use this crowd-sourced information to release a new traffic service in the future, quite possibly a turn-by-turn traffic service. Apple itself alluded to this in the document:
Apple is now collecting anonymous traffic data to build a crowd-sourced traffic database with the goal of providing iPhone users an improved traffic service in the next couple of years.
Apple has finally gone on the record regarding the ongoing story about iOS location tracking by putting out a press release this morning. The document entitled “Q&A on Location Data” begins by saying that “Apple would like to respond to the questions we have recently received about the gathering and use of location information by our devices.” It immediately flatly denies allegations of deliberate location tracking for unknown purposes. “Apple is not tracking the location of your iPhone. Apple has never done so and has no plans to ever do so”, it reads:
The iPhone is not logging your location. Rather, it’s maintaining a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers around your current location, some of which may be located more than one hundred miles away from your iPhone, to help your iPhone rapidly and accurately calculate its location when requested. These calculations are performed live on the iPhone using a crowd-sourced database of Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data that is generated by tens of millions of iPhones sending the geo-tagged locations of nearby Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers in an anonymous and encrypted form to Apple.
This line especially caught my attention as it indicates a new geolocation-based service from Apple:
Apple is now collecting anonymous traffic data to build a crowd-sourced traffic database with the goal of providing iPhone users an improved traffic service in the next couple of years.
Gawker on Monday discovered an Apple patent that hints at plans to collect location history from users, although it doesn’t seem to be related to this issue. A bunch of independent experts were able to prove that the location data file is simply left sitting in an iPhone backup file on your computer and your device without ever being beamed up to the Apple cloud. The statement goes on to detail why Apple has been tracking your geographical location, what they’ve been doing with this data and how they plan on tackling the PR scandal dubbed Locationgate which ensued following the discovery of this issue.
They conclude by promising an iOS firmware update, due “sometime in the next few weeks”, that will encrypt the location data file on your device. Apple confirmed that said iOS update will “reduce the size of the crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower database cached on the iPhone, ceases backing up this cache, and deletes this cache entirely when Location Services is turned off”.
By the way, Microsoft has also come out with its own Q&A on location tracking in Windows Phone 7. The Windows maker confirmed it stores location data in a database, but only when users approve app requests for location retrieval.
Read Apple’s statement in its entirety right below the fold…
