Apps

The New York Times reports that Facebook has been working on an iPad application for approximately the past year and is closing up their testing ahead of a launch in the “coming weeks.” The Facebook for iPad project, which is said to be “carefully designed and optimized for the tablet,” has been overseen by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Yep, the same person who said  Apple’s tablet is not a mobile device.

People who have seen the application said it has a slick design that has been tailored for the iPad and its touchscreen interface. Facebook developers and designers have also overhauled the Facebook Chat and Facebook Groups features for the application. And the app will go beyond the features available on the Facebook Web site by allowing users to shoot and upload photos and videos directly from the iPad’s built-in cameras.

The feature set of Facebook for iPad is said to include everything from the Facebook website but will add mobile-optimized features like taking and uploading pics and flicks. The report also says that Facebook for iPad will be free, which seems pretty obvious, and does not offer a release date more specific than “in the coming weeks.” Facebook currently serves their iOS users with their wildly popular iPhone and iPod touch application.

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Bloomberg has a story about New York-based books publisher John T. Colby suing Apple in federal court today over an alleged infringement of their ‘iBooks’ trademark:

Colby bought in 2006 and 2007 the assets of various entities owned by New York publisher Byron Preiss, who had published more than 1,000 hardcover and paperback books under the “ibooks” name starting in September 1999, according to the lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan today.

Patently Apple pointed in April of 2010 to Apple’s ‘iBooks’ and ‘iBookStore’ trademark applications with the United States Patent & Trademark Office. Back then, Apple asserted a claim of priority for iBooks based on Trinidad and Tobago application number 41872, filed earlier that year, probably in an effort to have their ‘iBooks’ trademark claim granted ahead of any possible lawsuit.

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An Apple patent application which surfaced this morning in the United States Patent & Trademark Office’s database envisions advanced proactive measures that are likely to end up utilized in the free Find My iPhone service (which can locate stolen Macs, too). Entitled “Proactive Security for Mobile Devices” and credit to Apple engineer Hooman Borghei, the patent application sets the stage with the following description:

Mobile devices, such as phones and media devices, have a high risk of being lost or stolen. If a mobile device is stolen, the information contained on the device can be accessed. Various security methods have been developed to prevent unauthorized access of information stored on mobile devices. Some methods will encrypt the data to prevent access. Simple encryption ciphers can be broken and more secure encryption techniques are also more complex and thus require more resources that may not be available on some devices. Other security methods allow a remote wipe command to be sent to the mobile device over a network. The remote wipe command, however, wipes out all the data on the mobile device accept a boot file. This forces the user to have to restore the wiped data, which can be inconvenient and time consuming for the user.

So, what are the aggressive countermeasures Apple’s been exploring? For starters, they propose selective protection of your content stored on the device. This would kick in when someone enters an incorrect passcode. We are more excited, however, about cool remote surveillance capabilities, such as transmission of the images and sounds that your device secretly captures. This could go a long way towards helping one figure out the thief’s surrounding without them suspecting anything. Yeah, kinda like this guy. Warning: This article will self-destruct in T-minus thirty seconds…

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Apple’s App Store is a nice venue to discover iOS software, but it’s far from perfect – especially when browsing its virtual shelves on your device. The iTunes Preview site – as well as other web and smartphone tools like AppShopper – all help find that needle in a haystack, but they also impose annoying limitations.

Not surprisingly, Google and Microsoft wouldn’t drill through their index in order to create a dedicated search page for mobile warez so Yahoo! took it upon themselves to fill the void (after all, they don’t have a mobile platform of their own to protect). Today, Yahoo! unveiled new search tools that help seek apps for your iOS device easier than ever before. The initiative consists of a dedicated search engine called Yahoo! App Search and an iOS app dubbed Yahoo! AppSpot.

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With flat music sales and booming app ecosystem, iOS app revenue should zoom past song sales by 2015 the latest.

By one estimate, iOS developers and record labels together have pulled some $16.6 billion in cumulative revenues on Apple’s iTunes content store since its inception, according to an interesting analysis by Asymco’s Horace Dediu. Even if it involves a lot of guesswork and peering inside the crystal ball, the author’s thinking is determined by known iTunes milestones and revenue data from Apple’s quarterly findings. For example, Steve Jobs told us at WWDC 2011 that Apple so far paid out $2.5 billion to app developers.

The combined “sales rate” is a remarkable $665 million per month. By the slope of the trend lines, it would appear that app income will exceed music income within three years. Another perspective is the number of downloads per device per month. This shows that the rate of consumption of apps is increasing and is now about six apps per device per month.

“Each iTunes account has ‘consumed’ about 67 songs but also 62 apps. Remarkable parity in such a short time. And the trend speaks for itself”, Dediu concludes. Plus…

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Apple Store software wall at flagship Apple Store following June ’11 changes (Image: Jason C.)

The following is a guest post from reader Danny (@iDannyOcean):

Apple retail stores undergo several updates each year to refine the shopping experience for its customers.  These changes vary as Apple tries to continually innovate their stores, but one trend has been consistent; Apple is decreasing the presence of Mac software.

When Apple opened the doors of its first retail store in 2001 it had a substantial amount of Mac accessories and software.  The software section was comprised of aisles going down the center of store as recent as 3 years ago.  The Mac App store wasn’t released until January of 2011 but Apple began to shape the layout of their stores around its arrival beginning in 2008.  Personal setup tables and open floor space to accommodate more visitors have replaced rows of software titles:

It seems the amount of available Mac titles decreases with each visual “overnight” Apple retail conducts.  This trend was punctuated last night when Apple stores underwent an update and were left with one small section of Mac software. Apple is slowly shaping the public’s ways of installing software via a disc and promoting the use of their download-only Mac App Store. This trend will reach its summit this July when Apple’s next generation Mac operating system, OS X Lion, will exclusively be available through the App store.

The notion of delivering all Mac software via download makes sense for Apple for several reasons. First, their customers have grown accustomed to utilizing the App and iTunes stores for their media and iDevice applications.  The Mac App Store will help recent PC switchers feel comfortable installing software.  This helps decrease new user frustration. Second, it provides Apple more shelf and inventory space to sell Apple accessories, which bring in higher profit margins.

Finally, Apple will save a tremendous amount of money on software packages, shipping, bags, and paper receipts (which have been optional the last few years).  These savings can be passed to the consumer.  A great example of this is that OS X Lion will be available at launch for only $29.  No one should be surprised if this time next year Apple does not have a dedicated area to Mac software. Indeed, it appears Apple’s plan to reduce our dependence on optical drives began years ago, which is evident in the evolution of their retail stores’ layouts, Apple’s download only software releases, and MacBook Air.

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TechCrunch received numerous screenshots and documents outlining a brand new iPhone app from Facebook focused solely on photo sharing. The program is allegedly code-named either “Hovertown” or “WithPeople” and could be released either as a standalone download for iOS devices or integrated into Facebook’s existing iPhone app. Author MG Siegler says the screenshots look “amazing”, adding:

Either way, based on the images in front of us, the best way to think about it appears to be Path meets Instagram meets Color meets (Path’s new side project) With — with a few cool twists.  And obviously, it’s built entirely on top of Facebook’s massive social graph.

With an astounding six billion photo uploads each month and a total of staggering hundred billion photos (or about 150 photos per user on average), a photo sharing app from Facebook would easily become a smash hit. Count us officially thrilled.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq8sjcOdAsc]

A jailbroken app called  ‘iUsers’enables the iPad to behave a little more like your Mac by supporting multiple user profiles.

The tweak puts a user profile button on the iPad’s homepage, where users can be switched fairly simply. For now only apps, music, and other content are shared between users, but the data inside the apps (game hi-scores, etc.) are user specific. iUsers’ developer is currently working on implementing more granular user data. The tweak is making its way to the Cydia marketplace, but if you’re eager you can find the instructions to installing iUsers over at BlogdoiPhone.

Hopefully we’ll see this natively in the iPad soon, and maybe Apple will decide to Sherlock it at some point in the future.

via Engadget
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Steve Jobs isn’t afraid to publicly admit that “good artists copy, great artists steal”. He purposefully reflected on that Picasso adage numerous times in the past, as shown in a short video snippet taken from a 1984 interview included for your reference below the fold. This very saying instantly popped into our mind when we saw the new Notification Center Apple debuted in iOS 5. As anyone knows, lock screen notifications are hardly a novelty to avid jailbreakers (or Android users). In fact, we were glad to see Apple wasn’t too proud to pull Android’s notifications. Though, of course, they can never say that Android has stolen the iOS look and feel from Apple again. But Notificaton Center via a pulldown gesture isn’t the only thing Apple borrowed from others…

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Nuance, a company behind Dragon Dictation software and cloud-based voice recognition technology that the rumor mill says will power advanced voice commands in iOS 5, today released a brand new app for your iPhone. Dubbed Dragon Remote Microphone, it turns your handset into a wireless microphone for use with their Dragon Desktop software and Dragon NaturallySpeaking for the PC (v11.5 and higher). “Instead of using the microphone that comes in the retail box, users can now opt to use their iPhone as a microphone instead“, Nuance writes in iTunes release notes.heck, you can even use it with the just updated Dragon NaturallySpeaking app to update your Facebook and Twitter accounts by speaking, how cool is that? Go ahead and grab iDragon Remote Microphone, it’s a free download from the App Store.

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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-36qTeAdDMI?rel=0&w=670&h=411]

The iPhoneIslam, the people behind the Cydia tweak that have successfully enabled FaceTime on iPhone 3G, are back. Their upcoming Cydia tweak is said to enable cellular calling and texting on jailbroken iPad 3Gs. The privilege of turning your tablet into o huge phone will set you back twenty bucks. We’re guessing this nifty little program should tie nicely with Apple’s new iMessage feature in iOS 5, enabling both SMS and free iMessaging on iPads. The app is called PhoneIt-iPad and should hit the Cydia Store shortly.

via Engadget

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Although Apple has not said if iOS 5’s Notification Center widget section will have a public API for third-party widgets, developer WillFour20 has figured out a way to develop a simple widget as a proof of concept. This proof of concept demonstrates that even without proper tools provided by Apple in the SDK, making widgets for Notification Center is technically possible. As you can see in the image above, a space for the new widget was created and the programmed text, “hello world,” appears.

Known jailbreak developer Chronic informed 9to5Mac that all a developer needs to do is create a “custom view interface” and “compile it is a bulletinboard plugin.” Bulletinboard is Apple’s internal codename for the iOS 5 Notification Center. Hopefully Apple opens up the Notification Center to be a third-party home to widgets. The odd thing about iOS 5’s Notification Center is that the widget section is only compatible with the iPhone and iPod touch; hopefully Apple is dreaming up something similar for iPad customers. If any other developers do take a shot at this, let us know!

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Media framework strings in iOS SDK have added a new 1080p video export preset

In addition to the newly discovered ability to render 1080p videos on A4-powered devices by scaling down high-definition content on-the-fly, a tipster pointed out that the iOS 5 software development kit ups the maximum resolution for video exports from 720p all the way up to 1080p. The iOS 5 media framework now rocks a new video export option: A 1920-by-1080 full HD preset. Previously, programmers calling system APIs were only able to export video content in 720p. The change has been spotted in export preset strings of AVAsset, an abstract class of AV Foundation framework which has been around since iOS 4.

Programmers use the AVAsset class to work on a detailed level with timed media assets such as videos and sounds. It lets them examine, create, edit or reencode media files, get input streams from devices, manipulate video clips during realtime capture and playback and more. It is now clear that iOS 5 enables devices such as iPhone 4, iPad 1 and 2 and fourth-generation iPod touch (all powered by the A4 chip) are now able to both decode and encode 1080p content. This completes the picture and is another indication that the rumors of an eight-megapixel camera with 1080p video capture on iPhone 5 are likely true because there is no point in iOS 5 supporting 1080p video exports if users won’t be able to acquire full-HD content on their iPhone 5.

iOS 5 can render 1080p videos (try this out by emailing yourself a short 1080p clip) and third-party apps are no longer limited to exporting video files in 720p

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Just as MuscleNerd informed the world that the iPhone-dev Team has successfully jailbroken a developer beta of iOS 5, the team two hours ago released an updated redsn0w beta tool that lets you put unsanctioned apps on your devices running a developer preview of iOS 5. Unlockers should avoid this jailbreak as they are very likely to lose their unlockable baseband if they try to install iOS 5, the team warned. Other useful things to know…

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Today, the US Patent & Trademark Office has published an Apple patent application which outlines a brand new iPhone app for one-click movie ticket purchasing. Aptly named Movie (not related to Apple’s iMovie for iOS app), it reminded us of Apple’s previously patented app for buying concert and event tickets. The Movie app would provide access to showtimes, previously viewed movies and trailers on the iTunes Movie Trailers page that provide more information about upcoming flicks. Patently Apple has poked around and discovered other features:

It’s also tied into the iPhone’s calendar so that it could remind you of previous engagements and/or tight schedules. This app is likely to be associated with many next generation apps associated with Apple’s forthcoming iWallet. This will definitely be a great little app that all movie goers will appreciate.

Entitled “Systems and Methods for Providing Context-Based Movie Information”, the document can be found by entering the application number 20110137690 in the USPTO search engine. Apple credits engineers John Louch and Todd Ditchendorf with inventing the solution.

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Whoa, Apple has reconsidered its stance on in-app subscriptions and has changed strict guidelines of its iOS developer agreement to allow in-app subscriptions outside the App Store. MacRumors spotted a crucial change in section 11.13 which previously required that content sold outside of the app be “also offered in the app using In-App Purchase at the same price or less than it is offered outside the app”. This requirement, which applied to both purchased content and subscriptions, is no longer in effect and has been entirely removed from section 11.13. Here’s the new wording:

Apps can read or play approved content (specifically magazines, newspapers, books, audio, music, and video) that is subscribed to or purchased outside of the app. Apple will not receive any portion of the revenues for approved content that is subscribed to or purchased outside of the app.

Put simply, prices no longer need to be identical outside the App Store, although publishers are still barred from providing links or buttons that lead to external pages where subscriptions are being offered. In all, that’s good news for the likes of Hulu, Amazon, Netflix, eBay and other companies which rely on content subscriptions. On the downside, it’s a little late for e-books publishers like BeamIt Down Software which closed down the shop, arguing it couldn’t sell books at a loss due to Apple’s 30 percent cut on iOS subscriptions. Anyway, Apple may have just dodged an anti-trust lawsuit.

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Custom vibrations in Settings (left) and the new interface to customize vibration patterns (right)

iOS 5 comes with a bunch of accessibility improvements, like the AssistiveTouch feature that lets you use your device with adaptive accessories and even create your own gestures. Another easily overlooked addition: Custom vibrations, on a per-contact basis, as pointed out by MacRumors. This is kinda cool, not just for the hearing impaired but for the rest of us as well. Example: If you’re in a meeting and your device is in silent mode, you can tell when your wife is calling based on a vibration pattern – how cool is that?

But why stop there? Combine custom vibrations with LED flash on incoming calls, ringtones, the iTunes Tone Store where you can buy custom alert sounds and deep Twitter integration which automatically adds Twitter user names and photos to your contact cards and suddenly iOS 5 looks pretty strong in the customization department. Here’s a quick guide to customizing vibrations for your contacts…

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Now would be a bad time to be a developer of an iPhone panoramic camera app. It appears that Apple will be allowing users to take panoramic photos in the photo app, if the code we’ve discovered below proves to make it into the final iOS 5 release. We’re not sure if/how to make it work or if it makes panoramas stitching together photos or making a movie. IF you’ve figured out how to get it to work, were all ears.

Thanks SonnyD!
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The winners were announced at WWDC yesterday:

iPhone Developer Showcase

Related articles

• Is Apple recalling Verizon iPad 2s? (9to5mac.com)
• Official: Steve Jobs to unveil iCloud, iOS 5, and Lion June 6 at WWDC (9to5mac.com)
• HHI Snap-On Hard Back Shell Case for iPad 2 w/ $2 credit for $9 + $3 s&h (9to5toys.com)
• WWDC 2011: Apple unveils iMessage, am iChat-like new messaging service for iOS 5 devices (9to5mac.com)
• This year’s Apple Design Awards is only for apps distributed via App Store and Mac App Store (9to5mac.com)

MacRumors discovered an interesting change in the App Store Review Guidelines, the one that puts DUI checkpoint apps out of their game on iOS devices. Here’s what section 22.8 of the updated App Store Review Guidelines now reads:

Apps which contain DUI checkpoints that are not published by law enforcement agencies, or encourage and enable drunk driving, will be rejected.

It doesn’t get any clearer than that. So, Apple has bent over backwards to make US Senators happy after all. Go figure. You may wanna hurry up and download those controversial apps that help avoid speed traps and speed cameras…

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The case of patent troll Lodsys suing iOS developers has taken a turn for the better. After Lodsys took seven indie iOS developers to court last week, they are now about to taste their own medicine. According to FOSS Patents’ Florian Mueller, all four Lodsys patents are under invalidation attack in federal court:

I have news concerning Lodsys because a Michigan company named ForeSee Results Inc. has filed a declaratory judgment suit against Lodsys’s four patents with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

This will help move legal proceedings from East Texas, which favors patent trolls like Lodsys, to Michigan. ForeSee is moving the case to another district because Lodsys’ CEO and sole employee “resides in, and conducts business from this Judicial District”. Lodsys has also issued letters to Adidas, Best Buy and WE Energies over an alleged copyright infringement related to a different patent. After issuing a mild statement, Apple appears to be keen on learning which developers are under lawsuit threats from Lodsys. A Sydney, Australia-based programmer James Wilson spotted an unusual notice when he logged in to iTunes Connect, Apple’s back-end for managing iTunes content submissions. The site asked him whether he was updating an app “because of a legal issue”, which may or may not relate to patent troll Lodsys.

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