June 21, 2011
In a nutshell, Co-Founder and CEO Jason Baptiste’s pitch to publishers is that while apps are good for some things — games, specific actions such as listening to music, etc. — for content-related purposes they aren’t ideal, for either the publisher or the user. As Baptiste puts it in one of the slides he shows to investors and partners, “apps are bull***.” To take just one example, most apps don’t take advantage of the web by using links or interactivity as much as they could, because the content is locked inside an app.
The OnSwipe that I’ve seen doesn’t beat some of the better apps that have been built.
Can OnSwipe convince media to go web instead of app? | GigaOm
Apple has released a new app to help users enjoy the iTunes Festival London 2011. (more…)
Take-Two Interactive Software CEO Strauss Zelnick raised eyebrows when he recently told Forbes that games for iOS would eventually hit $40, similar to the price that gamers pay for titles for Nintendo handhelds. Paul O’Connor of Appy Entertainment has a very different opinion.
“Prices on iOS game are compressed to free or $1 because this platform is at the center of the most competitive entertainment software market in history.”
iPad Developer Rebuts Take-Two CEO’s Pricing Comments on Tablet Games | IndustryGamers
The issues are manyfold: Firstly, customers can only buy iPhones from its authorized resellers and from carriers Aircel and Bharti airtel. Relating to this, while customer can buy unlocked iPhones from these same outlets, the price of a locked phone is similar to that of an unlocked phone. The complaint appears to allege that carriers are taking advantage of their unusual (for India’s market) exclusivity to charge unreasonable prices for Apple’s iPhones.
Apple dictates the market wherever it does business.
Apple Accused of Anticompetitive Practices in India Over iPhone | TMO
HealthTeacher on Tuesday announced that Apple Senior Product Manager John Herbold will leave Apple and join their company. (more…)
Public Diplomacy Minister Yuli-Yoel Edelstein has written Apple CEO Steve Jobs and asked that an app be removed from the App Store. (more…)
Mike Abramsky, analyst with RBC Capital Markets, revealed on Monday the results of a new proprietary survey of 1,500 respondents conducted between June 7 and 14. The poll found that 76 percent of iPhone users said they are “very” or “somewhat” likely to use Apple’s iCloud service, which would amount to 150 million users.
Honestly, that sounds low to me. iCloud does a lot and will be free — what’s bad about that?
76% of iPhone owners plan to use Apple’s iCloud, 30% interested in iTunes Match | AppleInsider
RIM co-CEO Jim Balsille publicly stated that email was not a core component that its customers wanted on the PlayBook. We all knew that was hogwash, but now the real reason has come out. (more…)
Earlier today Apple unveiled Final Cut Pro X, the newest version of its professional video software, and a hands on video has already been posted to YouTube. (more…)
Not only are they the best team in the NHL, but the Boston Bruins know how to party. The Bruins celebrated the Stanley Cup victory at Shrine nightclub at Foxwoods Casino on Saturday night and came away with a hefty bar tab. Approximately 1 million people showed up in Boston to help the team celebrate with the cup parade earlier Saturday.
When all was said and done, the Black and Gold racked up a bar tab that totaled $156,679.74, which included the now-famous $100,000.00 bottle of Ace of Spades “Midas” champagne, and a built-in tip of $24,869.80 for Danielle (the server whose name is on top of the tab above), which we imagine she had to split up with a few other servers at Shrine.
The Big, Bad Bruins $156,679.74 bar tab | Bruins Blog
Not even a week after RIM reported disappointing financial results, the company started handing out layoff notices to some workers. (more…)
Last weekend we brought you news of a newly discovered patent that could render your camera useless in some situations, like at a concert venue. With infrared sensors installed at the venue, concert goers could find their cameras disabled as the sensors talk to software installed on the iPhone. TUAW’s Mike Rose posted his thoughts on the subject this morning.
None of this, however, means that it’s prudent to stand atop the slippery slope of external device controls and say “Looks like a nice ride down.” It’s easy to think, as I did when first reading the admittedly hyperbolic language of the petition, “Look, the iPhone is not the only camera in the world; professional bootleg videographers don’t use crappy cameraphones at all, protesters have many different kinds of phones and cameras at their disposal, and as soon as this capability gets rolled out people will simply jump to another platform to work around it.”
Apple’s infrared ‘camera kill switch’ patent application hits a nerve | TUAW
In addition to releasing Final Cut Pro, Apple on Tuesday quietly updated its Time Capsule wireless router and backup system. (more…)
Apple on Tuesday unveiled the latest version of its professional video editing software, Final Cut Pro. (more…)
June 20, 2011
Apple’s mobile Safari Web browser may not have always done well against the competition, but the addition of the Nitro JavaScript engine certainly helped speed things up. According to new tests, the version of mobile Safari that will come with Apple’s iOS 5 is even faster, outdoing Internet Explorer and Android browsers.
Winrumors ran (and we confirmed – below) that the iOS 5 Beta’s Safari actually blows by the experimental IE 9 in Mango and scores a 31.iOS 5 will probably ship before Mango and it just beat it on Microsoft’s own unfair to begin with test.
iOS5 Mobile Safari smokes IE and Android browser, even on Microsoft’s tests | 9 to 5 Mac
Some people weren’t too impressed with Apple’s recently announced back to school promotion because it only offered a $100 gift card to the Mac App Store, instead of a deal on an iPod or other hardware. Best Buy hopes to fill that need by offering students $100 Best Buy gift card.
To qualify for the offer you need to be either a student, registered as a student for the fall, a teacher, or a parent of a student. If you meet one of those criteria, and you’re buying a Mac, you’re $100.00 richer today.
Best Buy matching Apple’s $100 gift card promotion | Macgasm
One of the most respected developers in the Apple community is Ken Case from the Omni Group. If you’ve wondered why some developers only make apps for Apple, Case has the answer for you. (more…)
With the announcement of iOS 5 at WWDC earlier this month, people got a view of what they can expect from Apple’s new mobile operating system. Features like AirPlay and iCloud have appealed to many, but Matthew Panzarino looked to Frasier Speirs, the Head of IT at Cedars School of Excellence in Greenock, Scotland to get an educator’s view on the operating system.
While I still don’t think we can (or would want to) give younger children accounts, the ability to back up and sync an iPad wirelessly to iTunes means that we would no longer need a computer in every Primary classroom. One large-ish computer on the network running iTunes could theoretically serve as the backup machine for an entire Primary department’s iPads – with no intervention from the teacher. Huge win
An educator’s thoughts on using iOS 5 features in an iPad classroom | TNW
The patent infringement settlement between Apple and Nokia did more than stock Nokia’s pockets full of cash, it also gave the company some much needed time to change. Experts peg Apple’s one-time payment to Nokia at $650 million. Apple will also pay ongoing license fees.
“The payments from Apple may give Nokia more time to cope with a challenging portfolio transition before its capital structure, which is currently very strong, begins to erode,” Wolfgang Draack, Senior Vice President at Moody’s, said in a statement.
Apple deal could buy Nokia time to change: Moody’s | Reuters
The Wall Street Journal reports that Research In Motion (RIM) has lost another executive: this time it’s Brian Wallace, VP of Digital Marketing and Media. Wallace has left RIM for Samsung, which confirmed he’s joined the company.
“Mr. Wallace’s departure comes amid a time of turmoil for Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM. The BlackBerry maker is bleeding market share in the U.S. as its aging product line struggles to compete against Apple Inc.’s iPhone and devices powered by Google Inc.’s Android-operating system, such as Samsung’s Galaxy. Last week, RIM’s shares fell to five-year lows after the company issued disappointing second-quarter guidance and said it would begin reducing its head count.”
Wallace is the latest high-profile marketing executive to leave RIM. Since the start of the year company lost its chief marketing officer and its VP of “Brand Creativity.” What’s more, last week, one of the company’s three chief operating officers went on temporary medical leave.
Another senior RIM executive leaves BlackBerry maker | Wall Street Journal
One of the new features in Mac OS X Lion is called AirDrop. It allows users to easily transfer files to one another by simply dragging and dropping files on a user’s icon. As of today, Apple now owns the trademark.
The trademark application was submitted last year by Urban Airship, Inc and the AirDrop service was launched last year. The service was advertised as a way for Android app developers to easily promote their applications.
Apple trademarks AirDrop [TUAW]
Mobile app-maker Seesmic on Monday told its customers that it would stop developing its BlackBerry app as of June 30, 2011. (more…)
Skype, Microsoft or the employees themselves have decided to make some changes to the management structure of Skype. While Skype has confirmed the departures, a spokesperson would not say whether they had been laid off or if they resigned.
The departures included David Gurle, vice president and general manager for Skype for Business; Don Albert, vice president and general manager for the Americas and Advertising; Doug Bewsher, chief marketing officer; Christopher Dean, head of consumer market business development; Russ Shaw, vice president and general manager; and Anne Gillespie, head of human resources.
Skype executives depart after Microsoft buyout [Macworld]
With everything that’s been happening with RIM in the past little while, I thought this infographic was kind of cool. It was put together by the folks at Geekaphone and used with permission. (more…)
Phil Harrison, the man who launched the original Sony PlayStation console and later because president of Sony Computer Entertainment’s Worldwide Studios, recently offered his vision of the future of gaming to Edge Magazine. And Harrison sees Apple as ground zero of future game industry growth.
At this trajectory, if you extrapolate the market-share gains that they are making, forward for ten years – if they carry on unrestrained in their growth, then there’s a pretty good chance that Apple will be the games industry.
Asked to explain, Harrison says his prediction is based on Apple’s understanding of “the end-to-end shopping experience:” devices, visibility of games on the platform, and ease of acquiring and loading those games through the App Store. He says that it “has been so elegantly built by Apple and they will continue to refine it.”
Phil Harrison on the future | Edge Magazine
If you’ve noticed more problems with BlackBerrys than usual, there may be a very simple explanation — RIM is forcing carriers to overlook major issues with the devices. (more…)
Lawyers for Apple and Samsung are in talks to end lawsuits from both companies claiming patent infringement by the other. (more…)
Withings on Monday announced the U.S. availability of its Connected Blood Pressure Monitor for iOS devices, including iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. It costs $129. (more…)
An estimated crowd of 1 million showed up to help the Boston Bruins celebrate their first Stanley Cup in almost 40 years. (more…)
First it was Sony, and now Sega has its online customer database hacked. I guess if there is a positive side to this breach it’s that no credit card information was stolen when the accounts were hacked. According to Sega, payment information was stored with external service providers.
Information taken includes names, birth dates, e-mail addresses and passwords, according to e-mails sent by Sega to affected customers. The information taken was part of Sega’s “Sega Pass” system, a registered account system Sega maintains for customers interested in newsletters and other information, and used for registering some Sega games with online components.
Sega: 1.3 million customer records hacked, LulzSec promises retribution [ZDNet Gamification]
