Apps

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kusQK7PCXTM

If Nuance gets its way with the just announced ‘Voice Ads’ mobile advertising platform, soon every mobile ad could include Siri-like functionality that lets you communicate with and ask questions about the product being advertised.

Nuance, the company behind the voice recognition module now used in Apple’s Siri, today announced a new project to bring its voice recognition technology to the mobile advertising world. The basic concept of the new platform, which Nuance made available through an SDK for advertising companies, is to bring a two-way, interactive conversation to mobile ads. As highlighted by Nuance in the video above, ads that implement the Voice Ads platform will allow users to engage in a Siri-like conversation with an advertisement:

Nuance Voice Ads gives mobile advertisers and creative agencies an opportunity to go beyond the limitations of the four-inch mobile device screen and create a conversation with consumers through the power of voice recognition. Voice Ads finally creates an opportunity for brands to deepen the relationship with their consumers, with targeted interactive ads that deeply engage their core audience – much in the way that the world’s most popular mobile personal assistants have deepened consumers’ relationship with their mobile phones.

In the demo above, Nuance shows an advertisement for a fictional deodorant brand that uses a magic 8-ball theme to answer any question that users might have. The ad of course ends in a pitch for the product in question, as you might expect. Other ads could allow users to ask specific questions about a product’s release date or specs…

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Here’s a look at some of the most fun or useful jailbreak tweaks that came out this week. If you like these tweaks, but don’t have a jailbroken iOS device, you can check out jailbrea.kr to learn more about how to jailbreak your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad.

Auto App Updater – $2.99

Auto App Updater is exactly what it sounds like. This great new tweak will automatically download and install updates to any of your App Store apps without any input from you. It comes with a ton of options for how often to check for updates, whether or not to use a celluar connection, whether to update apps when on battery or AC power, and even lets you blacklist apps from being automatically updated just in case there’s an app you’d rather keep at a certain version.

What’s more, for those of us who like to know exactly what we’re getting into with each app update, Auto App Updater will store the change log for any apps that it updates so you can check and see exactly what’s new. Of course, the only way you would know to check this change log is if you knew that there was an update to begin with. Since Auto App Updater installs the updates transparently in the background, you likely won’t even know there are change logs to read. To fix that, the tweak can show you a notification letting you know each time an update has been installed.

Auto App Updater is seroiusly impressive and it looks like a lot of thought went into making it the most comprehensive auto-update solution possible. You can get it now on ModMyi for the reasonably low price of $2.99.

Keep reading for more new tweaks

Apple is slowly rolling out a new customer service initiative across its retail stores called ‘table selling.’ With the new strategy, Apple Store employees are assigned a product table where they are responsible for working with groups of customers with different needs, albeit the same device, according to people familiar with the strategy. Previously, customers were individually helped on a first-come, first-serve basis and organized by an “iQueue” system that often resulted in lengthy wait times and customers walking out.

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Apple is beginning a campaign today to win back the video-editing community that abandoned its flagship video-editing software after the release of its controversial Final Cut Pro X. The LA Times reported that following several updates to the software over the last two years to fix some of the criticisms, Apple is launching a number new ads on its website today that feature professionals using Final Cut Pro X. The campaign is apparently timed to lined up with upcoming National Association of Broadcasters convention and aims to win over professional video editors by featuring professionals such as editors at the Globe and Mail newspaper:

Now, after updating the software seven times since its release in 2011, Apple is launching a campaign Thursday aimed at winning back skeptical professional users.

Starting Thursday, the company plans to begin posting three stories on its website, including Liurette’s, aimed at changing the minds of folks like Miller by demonstrating how sophisticated users have embraced Final Cut Pro X. The stories will also feature Tsui Hark, one of the biggest names in Hong Kong cinema, and TV Azteca, which produces thousands of telenovela episodes every year.

From Adobe’s “Why Switch” Premiere Pro website

It’s no secret that the professional video editing community was up in arms over Apple’s decision to release what they viewed as a scaled-back, prosumer version of Final Cut Pro with the release of Final Cut Pro X almost two years ago. Despite the Mac App Store dropping the cost of FCP from almost $700 to $299, pro video editors complained Apple had stripped away some of the software’s core features to create a simple experience for the average Mac user and not professionals. It earned FCPX the nickname “iMovie Pro” and criticism in the mainstream media followed by a response from Apple and eventually even refunds of the app to unsatisfied customers.

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Google updated its Gmail for iOS app today with the ability to swipe right or left to move between messages without going back to the inbox.

Version 2.1 also includes the ability to enable edit mode by selecting a message in the inbox. Once in edit mode, Google said users could tap on messages to select. They can then archive, delete, etc., from the new actions bar, or they can just Cancel to exit edit mode.

Check it out:

• Gmail for iOS (Free) | App Store

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News:

BMW iOS app integration: Following some recent Siri Eyes Free news from Chevrolet, BMW announced today that it has partnered with handful of developers to bring similar eyes free experiences for a number of third-party iOS apps to its vehicles. BMW has partnered with Audible for audio books, Glympse for location sharing services, Rhapsody for subscription music and TuneIn for internet radio, all of which will be updating their apps in the weeks to come for compatibility with the BMW Apps system.

Plants vs Zombies 2: PopCap announced today that part two of its incredibly popular Plants vs Zombies title is finally going to land on iOS in additional to all the other usual platforms “early summer.”  No clues on what might be included in the second installment, but in the meantime PopCap will launch a new version of the game on Facebook.

App Updates:

IM+ Instant Messenger version 7.7: A nice update to the very popular IM+ service today offers Beep mobile-to-mobile service as an in-app purchase, the ability to preview transferred images directly in chats, and the usual bug fixes and performance enhancements. iPad users will also now be able to capture photos and videos in the app.

StreamBoard version 5.0: The Twitter client that lets you track keywords and hashtags in real-time is updated to version 5.0 with many new features and enhancements:

For this incredible milestone, StreamBoard has been rewritten from the ground up bringing to you:
– A brand new streamlined interface powered by gestures
– A reimagined filter view featuring real-time graphs that you can interact with
– Much improved engine for faster speed!
– and many more!

Pac-Man version 3.5.0: iOS 6 support and new features for the Pac-Man iPad app.

Added support for iOS 6
Fixed Game Center issue for iOS 6
Updated More Games functionality

Deals:
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Twitterrific 5, the newest version of the Iconfactory’s wildly popular Twitter client, got a big update today. For the first time since its original release, Twitterrific finally supports native push notifications for new mentions, direct messages, followers, favorited tweets, and retweets. 

Until today, Twitterrific users had to rely on a third-party service called Boxcar for notifications. Boxcar’s service has become somewhat finicky over the last few years and put a bit of a sour note on the launch of the completely refreshed interface in December. In fact, the lack of native push notifications was one of the biggest issues in our original review.

Unfortunately, the notifications aren’t available for all users just yet, and they are being considered a “beta” feature right now according to the Iconfactory. In fact, only 1,000 users will receive push notification access initially. These users will be granted access on a first-come, first-served basis. As with Tweetbot’s launch of push, “getting in” will just be a matter of installing the update, racing to the notifications settings, and enabling at least one option before all the slots are gone.

Once notifications are enabled for your Twitter account, you’ll be able to get notifications for that account on all of your devices. You’ll have to repeat the process for any other accounts you want notifications on. More users will be added to this pool in the coming weeks, but for now it’s just a matter of racing to be the first to get in.

Twitterrific 5.2 also has a few other new features and fixes:

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XCOM: Enemy Unknown: Firaxis is officially bringing critically acclaimed turn-based strategy game XCOM: Enemy Unknown to iOS. The company first made the announcement at a panel during PAX East over the weekend and since posted the video above showing off some early gameplay footage.

The moment you have been waiting for is here! #Airspace is now accepting submissions for #leapmotion apps. More info: http://t.co/5oDwDigRMR

— Leap Motion Dev (@LeapMotionDev) March 23, 2013

News: The people behind the Leap Motion controller have announced that it will now accept app submissions ahead of the upcoming launch of its new Airspace app store. We previously brought you a hands-on with the product scheduled to officially launch in May.

More apps:

Karma- Reddit Client: Just released on the App Store, Karma is a new Reddit client for iPhone that brings a simplistic UI and everything you’ll need from one easy to navigate app.

StubHub version 4.2.1: Over 700 new interactive venue maps and more for the StubHub iOS app:

– 700+ interactive venue maps: Filter ticket listings by section
– View from section for more events: See the view from your section before you buy
– Fixes to address the app crashes reported by some users
– Bug fixes

DataMan Next version 6.3: Data tracking app DataMan Next gets tethering support for some non-US carriers as well as support for VoiceOver. 
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Here’s a look at some of the most fun or useful jailbreak tweaks that came out this week. If you like these tweaks, but don’t have a jailbroken iOS device, you can check out jailbrea.kr to learn more about how to jailbreak your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad.

ThumbsUp – Free

ThumbsUp adds a few new ways to interact with your Pandora music. The primary method is a set of Activator actions that let you use gestures to thumb-up or thumb-down the current song. Another useful method (which is actually disabled by default) is a pair of buttons on the lock screen music controls that let you give feedback on the currently-playing song. You can turn the lockscreen buttons on in the tweak’s preferences inside the Settings app.

Thumbs Up is available for free on BigBoss.

Keep reading for more tweaks

Asymco’s Horace Dediu has estimated that Apple’s iTunes business, initially intended only to cover its costs as a way of driving hardware sales, now earns the company annual profits of a cool $2 billion.

What started as just a music store now sells music, video, books, iOS software, and Mac software. Revenues have grown five-fold in 7 years, with total sales approaching $5 billion a quarter and notching up an estimated 23 billion transactions a year.

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Mailbox: After a bit of a controversy with its reservation system, followed by getting acquired by Dropbox for a reported $50 – $100 million, developers of the highly successful Mailbox app announced it has filled its 1 millionth reservation just 6 weeks after launching. The free Mailbox app also gets an update to version 1.1.0 with UI enhancements, performance optimizations, and a new “Shake to undo” feature.

Plex version 3.1: The iOS app for the popular Plex media server was updated today with a ton of new features and fixes. Some of the big new features include a Mobile Media Server mode to play synced content and view photo albums from any other Plex client, push notifications for recommendations, a new experimental universal transcoder. Also included is a new dark theme, redesigned photo viewer, and much, much more.

Pinterest version 2.3: Pinterest announced that it is adding some new features to its mobile apps today that include some of the recent updates to its web version. You’ll now be able to view a “people who pinned this also pinned” feature, edit your profile from the app, and get a close-up view of pins on the iPad.

Speedtest.net 3.0: Mobile speedtest.net app from developers Ookla gets an update today with a new UI and full iPhone 5 support, the ability to permanently remove ads, easier sharing, and more.

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Apple has updated its Podcasts app today with a number of new features. Among the most notable is the ability to create custom stations that update automatically as new episodes of podcasts are available. There are also a number of new enhancements for stations and playlists, including iCloud support to keep stations up to date on all your iOS devices.

The app also now includes a redesigned “Now Playing” view that shows playback controls, as pictured in the screenshots above.

Other improvements include On-The-Go playlists and support for syncing playlists from iTunes, an option to have stations begin playing with the latest or oldest episode, and other fixes and performance enhancements:
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