Apps

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAllFWSl998&fs=1&hl=en_GB]

We know, we know, it’s Friday and other than huge excitement at what’s coming from Apple on October 20 (glimpse at new OS, iLife, iWork and new MacBook Air, we reckon), but where’s your Friday afternoon video fun?
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Virtual good sales are spiking within Apple’s iOS ecosystem, with revenues from such sales dwarfing ads revenue, reports analytics firm, Flurry.

The analytics company looked at revenues accrued by a sample group of social networking and social gaming apps to reach its conclusion.

The sample group offered a “combined reach of 2.2 million daily active users”, Flurry says. It found that in-app purchases were accounting for over 80 percent of their revenues.
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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAVQPa9L3jg&fs=1&hl=en_GB]

This morning we’re enjoying this video clip straight out of Hong Kong, where the Hong Kong Mass Transit Railway has launched its new app, inviting along a Chinese Fake Steve Jobs to introduce the new product.

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The popular media player, VLC, made its way to the iPad just a few weeks ago, and the company behind the application, Applidium, has just submitted a version for the iPhone. Here’s our exclusive hands-on of VLC Media Player for iPhone:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0k-ZAicEek&w=640&h=385]

Oh, and as you see in the video we had a really hard time playing a 720p video on an iPhone 4.

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Move over Limera1n, there’s a new iOS 4.1 Jailbreak tool in town, and this one’s greenpois0n — though at time of writing it seems a little uncertain if the tool is available or not.

Released for Windows and Linux systems following a short delay last night, the tool supports iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, the third and forth generation iPod touch, and the iPad. It doesn’t yet support the current Apple TV, and a Mac version is promised somewhere down the line.
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The Amazon iPhone App (doesn’t work on anything but iPhone 3GS or 4) got a little update today that will let users scan barcodes and instantly compare prices at Amazon.  For instance, you are at a store buying a lamp and want to see if Amazon has a better price, you’d point your iPhone at the barcode and a few seconds later (literally takes 2 seconds) you’d see the Amazon price with the option to buy.  Bam!

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The Huffington Post has this:

All a moderately-skilled iPad user has to do is connect the iPad to his laptop, search inside the iPad files with a common managing software (we used iPhone Explorer), copy the .plist file that manage the download information and correct a single field. This boils down to changing a single word: Where it says “purchasable” you write “viewable” instead, and copy back the file on the iPad. Now all you need to do is click on “delete” the magazine issue on the iPad app and a “download” button will appear instead of the “buy” button. It means you can download the magazine for free.

If true, someone needs to work on their security.  Who?

Adobe manages Condé Nast iPad apps — wrote us they are “very concerned by piracy issues”. “”We have confirmed that it is possible for experienced users with detailed instructions to access some digital publications on the iPad that have not been purchased. We are working on a fix and expect to deliver a new version of our Digital Content Viewer to publishers on Friday, October 8”, an Adobe sposkesperson said.

Yeah, according to the Huffington Post, the  hole is still open.  Italian papers are also affected.
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This hasn’t taken long: recall one of the early winners of funding from the infamous ‘iFund’ venture capital stash designed to boost Apps development? It was ngmoco, of course, and now that hugely succesful company is set to be acquired by Japanese social games network, DeNA Co.

The $403 million purchase follows August’s news that Google Ventures invested $5 million in the developer.
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Late last week we told you that Yahoo would be updating their Yahoo Messenger app to include 3G video calling. The neat thing about their video calling is that it works between computers and phones too.

Smartphones with front-facing cameras besides the iPhone are supported as well so a huge user base will be present for video calling. The update also includes iOS 4 multitasking and instant notifications. It’s free and get it here.

Update: Doesn’t appear to to work on iPod Touch

Original Mac Mini vs. new AppleTV

We’ve been able to verify that the Limera1n does work on AppleTVs (TUAW also) though no apps run on it and OpenSSH isn’t yet available. But soon, you’ll be able to punch though into your AppleTV box and have a pretty basic Unix machine with a command line interface and a significantly powerful GPU.

So what kind of computer do you get for $99 (and $64 for Apple’s N+1).

…or what fun toys does this have inside to exploit?  From the teardown we know it has Bluetooth and FM.   We also know from its specs that it has 10/100 Ethernet, Wifi N, USB and 720P HDMI video out (1280×720) which also carries digital audio.  Internally it has a 1GHz ARM Cortex A8, 256MB of RAM and 8GB of storage.

With some significant hacking, these could make fantastic little DNS servers or Firewall/VPN/Routers.  It shouldn’t be too hard to turn an Ethernet wired AppleTV into an Airport base station for instance.  It might be a bit harder (or not) to turn it into a fantastic little NAS with the USB port on the back.  At $99/ea these are going to be great hacking toys.

But why stop there?  
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FaceTime, one of the iPhone 4’s marquee features, already has some heated competition in the App Store. These apps include the popular Fring and most recently Tango video calling applications. Fring is popular for its large feature set, 3G video calling capabilities, and compatibility with other mobile phone. The recently launched “Tango” app is known for its ease of use as well as 3G video calling capabilities with other iPhones and smartphones. Today Reuters reports on some interesting information they learned regarding an upcoming Yahoo video calling application for the iPhone.

This Yahoo video calling application will be a free update to their already available Yahoo Messaging app on the App Store, and it has some surprises hidden up its sleeve. The updated application will not only work over WiFi and 3G, like Fring and Tango, but will allow for video calls between iPhones and computers running the desktop Yahoo Messenger application. This new app poses some serious competition to Apple’s built-in FaceTime feature as it not only allows for video calling over 3G but opens up the door for video calling with many more users.

Apple announced back at WWDC that FaceTime over 3G would be coming at some point in 2011 as they still have to work out terms with carriers, and from our tests 3G FaceTime works very well. Apple is rumored to be launching a desktop version of FaceTime that will be integrated into the Mac’s iChat application. This upcoming app from Yahoo is reportedly yet to be approved, and hopefully this helps serve as a push for Apple to bring FaceTime to the desktop, iChat to Windows, and FaceTime to more devices.

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PayPal today announced that their PayPal Check Capture service, via the iOS app, has deposited over $100,000 worth of checks in the app’s first 36 hours. PayPal’s Check Capture service came to the iPhone via a PayPal app update the other day. This service allows you to take a picture of the front and back of a check you want to deposit into your PayPal account and it will deposit it for you.

This new service for iPhone and iPod touch users is free, but PayPal takes a whole six days to process these mobile deposits.

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The popular Meebo instant messaging client for the iPhone and iPod touch got the long needed iOS 4 update. The usual suspects are now present such as multitasking/quick-app-swtiching support, Retina Display support, and iAds.

Meebo is yet to include an iPad version of their instant messaging client and hopefully they make some sort of paid version to get rid of this fantastic iAds.

Chronic dev team member, Joshua Hill, has tweeted the goods on GreenPois0n’s launch date. In case you didn’t read the title, the jailbreak for iOS 4.1 is coming this Sunday, Oct. 10, at 10:10:10 AM.

We still don’t really know anything about this jailbreak and hopefully it actually launches on time. Update: For iPad, iPhone 4 and iPod touch 4th gen.

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I’ve lost sleep wondering about this — what apps does noted iPhone and iPad user, Oprah Winfrey, like to use. Well, praise be this morning I got the list, thanks to International Business Times.

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For those chat clients outside of the realm of iChat, most of us Mac People use a great little app called Adium.  On the PC side of things, the best equivalent of Adium is Trillian (you may know Trillian from its iOS app?)  Today, Trillian’s application for Macintosh has gone into Beta (the Alpha’s been floating around for a couple of months).

On paper and with a few minutes of use, it looks pretty good.

From Trillian:
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Last week we told you about the upcoming check capture feature in the iPhone PayPal app. This new feature uses your device’s camera to capture checks so they can be deposited into your PayPal account. This feature is similar to the Chase banking app and snaps the front and back of the check you want to deposit.

The new feature is now available on iTunes as a free update to PayPal. Thanks, Randall.

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While you’re waiting to get your hands all over Apple TV’s AirPlay goodness, Netflix has thrown you a bone in their latest app update. Besides those infamous “bug fixes” which rarely mean anything, Netflix added video-out support. Video-support for Netflix allows you to hook up one of those fancy cables and enjoy Netflix’s wonderful content on the big screen.

If you’ve got an Apple TV this really means nothing, but if you don’t this is great.
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You know that huge gamer dude in the office?  Yeah he’s not showing up for work tomorrow.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cu3Bt3b0XSM&w=670&h=401]

Left 4 Dead 2 will be released on the Mac Tuesday October 5th. If you already own it on the PC, then you own it on the Mac. All you need to do is install it on your Mac and start playing.If you don’t already own it, now is a great time to pick it up. Not only do you get Left 4 Dead 2 but steam owners get all the previously released DLC for free! So you get the original 5 Campaigns and “The Passing”, “The Sacrifice” and “No Mercy.” Best of all, there is already a thriving community and excellent community created campaigns waiting for you.Sorry Left 4 Dead owners, the Mac version is coming but we are running a little late. We hope to have it out in time to celebrate Halloween on the Mac. When released, L4D1 Mac players will receive the same great treatment. All the previous released updates and DLC for free and the ability to play an extensive library of community content. More information on the release date as it nears.

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Amazon UK’s got a new book for us on iLife ’11 due in November.  How convenient!

In case your German is a little rusty, that red band reads: “iPhoto, iMovie and more with apps for Mac, iPhone 4, iPod and iPad.”

That’s interesting.  Does it mean that there are iLife apps for iOS or does it mean you can create apps for iOS with a new iLife Application?  Or is this whole listing just a farce?

We’re expecting some new MacBooks of some sort during the next month or so, so an iLife ’11 introduction during that time would be a good fit.

Update: The German site has some more goodies (thanks commenter!)

One more surprise/contradiction below:
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Apple today updated their MobileMe Gallery iOS app for full iPad support as a universal binary, Retina Display support for iPhone 4 and iPod touch 4, and support for iOS 4 quick-app-switching. Additionally, the update allows users without MobileMe accounts to view friend’s galleries through the app.

MobileMe Gallery allows MobileMe users to upload and share their photo albums with friends. The app is free as always and can be downloaded here. Release notes after the break:

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