Apps

Apple is promoting the best of everything in iTunes 2010 this morning.  Their year end round up marks the top selling and grossing apps in a number of categories.  Notably, Apple cleaned up in the iPad grossing section with its iWork Apps.

iPad Top Free, Top Paid, Top Grossing

iPhone: Top Free, Top Paid, Top Grossing
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Today we’re liking the BlueSLR gadget, a Bluetooth dongle that lets you control your Nikon SLR from your iPhone, and adds a few other features which justify its $150 price tag.

All you need to do is connect blueSLR to your compatible digital SLR camera and use your phone to adjust your camera’s focus, shutter speed or timer.
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDvPIhCd8N4&w=640&h=385]

Epic Games has finally launched their anticipated Infinity Blade game for iOS. The fighting game relies heavily on multitouch gestures and works off of Epic’s “unreal engine” technology original showcased in Epic Citadel. Above is the game’s trailer and here is where you can get it as a universal binary for $6.

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Apple has lost its iPhone game team leader, Graeme Devine, who quit the iPhone Game Technologies division last Friday.

Formerly of id Software where he had a hand in development of Quake 3 for Mac, Devine says he quit Apple in order to return to game development — with a focus on titles for the iPhone and iPad.
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COMPUTERWORLD: Apple CEO Steve Jobs made the news today with a promise his company will make its online hosted MobileMe service much better next year. Other than improved stability, reliability and consistent performance, just what exactly do we want Apple to give us? Here’s a few suggestions.

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Update: Looks like Google may have thrown the app up a bit early – It’s now gone from “all the world’s” App Stores.

After being an iOS web app for sometime now, Google has finally released a native Google Latitude client to the App Store and it’s free. Google Latitude is essentially a Google Map that has points with all your friend’s locations – seeing they like Google and being stalked – and works in the background.

With Google Latitude, see where your friends are right now. Latitude lets you stay in touch with your friends and family by making it easy to share where you are and see each other on a map.

With Latitude, you can:
* See your friends on a map – find out who’s nearby and meet up.
* Share your location continuously with whomever you choose – help friends and family stay in touch with you, even when you can’t take out your phone.
* Control your privacy – share only city-level location, hide your location, or turn off background updating at any time.

Latitude lets you share your location in the background, even when the app is closed or your device screen is locked. Background updating requires an iPhone 3GS or iPhone 4 with iOS 4 or above.

You can also enjoy Latitude from your computer at google.com/latitude to see where your friends are or turn on optional apps such as Google Location History for a personal history dashboard.

Google also promises some nice privacy features in the app but we’ll have to see how well they actually perform. It’s free so you might want to give it a try and did we mention it’s only out in Asia/Australia right now? (via Tech Crunch)

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COMPUTERWORLD: Apple’s plotting course for the release of iPad 2.0 in February today’s hot rumor claims, but there’s some signs Apple plans a massacre as it prepares the ground for 2011’s expected battle with tablets powered by Android’s more tablet-friendly “Honeycomb” software. Apple has price, subsidy and many more options open to it as it moves into next year.

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ABBA fans — there’s an app for that. ABBA Singbox is your sing-along a ABBA app for all happy fans of the Swedish four piece. In the style of SingStar and Lips, the app lets you sing along with the songs at two difficulty levels. Amateur, which tests timing, and Pro, which also tests pitch.
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Jailbroken iPad users running iOS 4.2 are now able to run Apple’s iMovie iPhone 4 and iPod touch 4 application via a few SSH tricks. The problem is that iMovie runs like an iPhone app on an iPad- letterboxed. That’s where the jailbreak app FullForce comes in. The jailbreak-only app (available on Cydia) makes iMovie run fullscreen like a native iPad app. Check out more screenshots and instructions after the break (Thanks, SilverTH):

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Apple’s taken yet another slice of the enterprise market with the introduction of the all-new iPad-savvy version of Cisco’s industry-leading Webex platform!

This will let you schedule and start meetings on your PC — and host meetings on your iPhone — when you sign up for a WebEx account.

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COMPUTERWORLD: Apple works in partnership within the in-car entertainment systems sector, but somehow solutions there lack a certain ‘Apple’ touch. So just what might a fully integrated future Apple-focused in-car entertainment system be capable of?

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The eBook wars have just become a tri-partisan dispute, with Amazon versus Apple now seeing a third gorilla enter the room as Google launches its long-anticipated ebookstore.

Google eBooks is apparently “all about choice”, so you can get an app for iPhone, Android, Nook and Sony and for your computer. The service isn’t yet available outside the US.

Interestingly, your books are stored in the cloud, suggesting ad opportunities for the company.
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Apple may have hatched a deal with Verizon under which T-Mobile and Sprint will be locked out of the sexy, beautiful iPhone everywhere post-ATT exclusive in the US next year, an analyst said.

I hasten to note that the analyst here is one Kaufman Bros., Shaw Wu, and I’ve noted that his analysis while widely reported is often incorrect. But here’s the story.
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What’s this we hear? Apple’s going to open up its Mac App Store for business just on time for Christmas? That’s how it seems with the latest claimed insider gossip suggesting Apple’s gonna open its doors on the new big consumer software online retail outlet on December 13, hurrah!

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4aAq9ddA_Y&w=640&h=385]

SBRotator, a new jailbreak-only tweak, was just released and it brings landscape homescreens to the iPhone in addition to a feature that makes all apps work in landscape. The tweak is fully customizable so you can arrange your homescreen apps any way you like, and it is fully compatible with Apple’s latest iOS devices. The tweak is available on the Cydia store and check out the video above to see it in action. Full feature list after the break courtesy of iSpazio:

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COMPUTERWORLD: Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Nokia — these big name firms are locked into eternal struggle in the ever-changing world of technology, but Apple may hold the central skill in this new world order, as building tomorrow’s dreams demands that old engineering adage, “less is more”, and “better is not necessarily better than best”. Why? Because they can’t get the staff.

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(Image c/o, Wired)

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ybn-OvSLKg&fs=1&hl=en_GB]

Apple may or may not seize the chance to raid the console gaming markets next year if and when it introduces application support to the Apple TV, but it is one of the world’s few firms with a chance to take a bit at that market, at least that’s according to Electronic Arts.
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Apple has informed Mac Developers that demo, trial, and beta versions of software will not be permitted on the upcoming Mac App Store. Apple will only be accepting fully functional, retail versions of applications. Unlike with the iOS App Store, Apple is encouraging developers who wish to provide demos, trials, and betas to post them as files on their own personal websites.

Your website is the best place to provide demos, trial versions, or betas of your software for customers to explore. The apps you submit to be reviewed for the Mac App Store should be fully functional, retail versions of your apps.

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Apple is attempting to put some life into Ping, seizing the chance to offer an exclusive premiere of a new Michael Jackson (deceased) song on the service.

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SproutCore is something else, a technology which drives the superior Web experience that MobileMe is rapidly becoming. Now SproutCore creator, Charles Jolley, has quit Apple to launch a startup called Strobe, tasked to deliver Apple-like JavaScript and HTML5 technologies to create apps which run smoothly on any device.
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Angry Birds fans (and there’s millions out there) take note: Angry Birds Seasons, the latest free update to the game is availble now.
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