CocoaConf Alt was a conference that was organized for the week of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference for all of the attendees that couldn’t get tickets for Apple’s event. However, organizers of CocoaConf Alt contacted attendees this morning and said the event has been canceled.
“We have decided to cancel CocoaConf Alt 2013. It turns out that it’s not just the hotel that had concerns, but that Apple has a policy of stopping ‘competing’ events in the area,” wrote CocoaConf Alt, Dave Klein. “You know and we know that CocoaConf Alt was not in competition with WWDC, but there just isn’t time to find the right person at Apple to explain that to, nor any guarantee that we could convince them if we found them.”
Of course, all attendees that paid for the event will be refunded and Klein is offering those people a free pass to an upcoming CocoaConf event.
There is still one other event planned for the week of WWDC called AltWWDC, which was announced in late April. According to its Web site, that event looks like it’s still going on as planned.
Way before movies like Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings inspired the imagination of film lovers everywhere, audiences were enraptured by the sword-wielding skeletons of Jason and the Argonauts, the great ape of Mighty Joe Young and the dinosaurs opposite Raquel Welch in One Million Years B.C.
The man responsible for all those and much more, Hollywood special-effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen, died Tuesday in London at the age of 92. His family announced his death via The Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation Facebook page.
Ray Harryhausen’s movies were some of my childhood favorites, from Jason and the Argonauts to The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad and, of course, the original Clash of the Titans. He was the master of stop-motion photography.
Warner Music Group on Tuesday announced the release of “The Doors,” the official iPad app for the iconic band.
Built with the support of drummer John Densmore, guitarist Robby Krieger, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, and the estate of the late singer Jim Morrison, the app features interactive content, unpublished band images and artwork, rare videos, music and more. According to the description, the “app brings the band’s story to life with an unprecedented immersive experience that delves deeply into every aspect of The Doors’ iconic career.”
“The Doors App is divided into several sections, with the The Story button leading to the true centerpiece, proving endlessly intriguing for both veteran fans and new initiates with hundreds of photos, videos, and interviews. All six albums recorded by the original Doors foursome, as well as the two albums recorded later by the Doors as a trio, are spotlighted here through essays from counterculture icons including Patti Smith and Hunter S. Thompson,” according to Warner Music.
This looks like a must-have for every fan of “The Doors.” The app costs $4.99.
My favorite audio plug-ins have been updated. This is a big release that includes multi-unit Cascading of two Apollo units or two Apollo 16 units. The release also includes three new plug-ins: Ocean Way Studios, Sonnox Oxford Inflator and the SPL TwinTube Processor.
There are so many in jokes to love here, like Nimoy singing the Bilbo Baggins song and the gratuitous use of lens flare every time they show Zachary Quinto’s Audi.
While we are not planning further feature development for Fireworks, we will continue to sell Fireworks CS6 as well as make it available as part of the Creative Cloud. We will provide security updates as necessary and may provide bug fixes. We plan to update Fireworks to support the next major releases of both Mac OS X and Windows.
Federico Viticci has a long list of features and improvements that he would like to see in the next version of iOS. Some will never make to the operating system, but there are others that I would never of even thought of, like separate language support for Maps.
At the keynote to open its Max conference in Los Angeles today, Adobe announced that it is discontinuing development of its Creative Suite software in favor of working on Creative Cloud products exclusively. The company is readying a new release of “CC” branded apps for release on June 17th.
In making the decision to stop developing Creative Suite apps, Adobe said it wanted to focus efforts specifically on Creative Cloud apps. So while users will still be able to buy Creative Suite 6 and be supported, Adobe won’t do any further development except for bug fixes and compatibility upgrades.
“Hundreds” of new features are rolling out with the new release, in each of the major apps. Adobe showed off new versions of Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects and other tools coming next month.
Creative Cloud launched in April 2012, at the same time Adobe released Creative Suite 6. Creative Cloud offers users all of the same software included with Creative Suite 6, but Adobe charges a $50 monthly subscription fee for access. Users upgrading from CS3-CS5 are eligible for a discount to $30 per month; CS6 users who want to switch will pay $20 per month. Adobe also allows users to buy access to just one app if they need to.
Adobe showed off new iOS apps in development including a version of its Kuler color palette app running on the iPhone, and a Creative Cloud app that enables users to share files and folders and look at content stored in the cloud. Cloud integration is key from here on out, and Adobe emphasized collaboration at every turn, including deep integration with Behance, the professional portfolio sharing service Adobe acquired in 2012.
Adobe also gave a peek at some hardware projects it has underway, including a Bluetooth stylus working on an iPad that’s able to import content and settings from Creative Cloud, and a ruler that helps iPad users draw straight lines, arcs and angles, like a drafting tool. The company has also collaborated with Condé Nast’s Wired magazine on an ambitious project to rework the way that magazines layout their pages, making the entire process virtual using sophisticated touch-screen walls and tables. All of the hardware efforts are works in progress; Adobe offered no timetable or price estimate for any of the new technology.
At the end of 2012, 2bn adults had yet to buy a mobile connection of any kind, and another 1.6bn were on prepay and not eligible to get subsidies. It doesn’t matter how many operators Apple or Samsung puts on distribution: those people are not going to buy a $600 phone.
However, that leaves about 1.6bn who might.
Ben Evans has some interesting analysis to back up his conclusions.
Many thanks to StackSocial for sponsoring The Loop’s RSS feed this week. StackSocial proudly presents the Name Your Own Price Mac Bundle 2.0. Get 10 essential Mac Apps. Donate to charity. Name Your Own Price. Take the top spot on the Leaderboard and automatically get entered to win a FREE Macbook Air!
If you use a typeface that reminds me of the script on the menu of a French restaurant, then no, I’m not going to instinctively believe that you’re a good doctor. If you use a thin, elegant wedding invitation font in your Powerpoint presentation, you haven’t been clever, you’ve merely confused me.
So true. I see people do crazy things like this all the time and it just makes me angry.
“The narrative has been focused on the consumer demand, and the narrative needs to shift to the operator,” said Dediu, a former in-house analyst for Nokia Oyj. “Apple has run out of the kinds of operators that will say yes to them.”
The article mentions China Mobile as a prominent holdout. The latest grist in the rumor mill is that the next revision of the iPhone will work on China Mobile’s network.
Regardless, Apple has huge market opportunities if it can better cater to local markets, which may require engineering a less expensive device or working differently with carriers than it has been. The question is, will Apple take that opportunity?
A study by Manhattan Research in 2011 found that 75% of physicians owned at least one Apple product. Vitera Healthcare’s 2012 survey of health-care professionals backed up this high number. The company’s study found that 60% of respondents used an iPhone and 45% owned an iPad.
The real revolution, though, has come from how physicians and other health-care professionals are using Apple’s devices. Mobile applications opened the door for clinicians to instantly access a world of medical information at the point of care.
It’s not just healthcare professionals, either – patients are able to get information faster thanks to iOS devices, too.
Many thanks to CleanMyMac 2 for sponsoring this week’s RSS feed on The Loop.
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Market research firm comScore on Friday released a new study that shows Apple is leading the smartphone market in the U.S. The study focused on a three month average ending March 2013.
According to comScore, Apple has 39% of the smartphone market, up 2.7% from the 36.3% share it had when the last study was released. Apple’s closest competitor is Samsung, which only accounted for 21.7% of the market, up a mere 0.7% from the last report.
HTC (9%), Motorola (8.5%) and LG (6.8%) round out the top five.
While Google’s Android leads the mobile platform race with 52% of the share, Android’s share dropped 1.4% during this study period. Apple’s iOS rose 2.7% from 36.3% to 39% during the same period.
