Google Renews Maps Deal With Apple, Plus Other Tidbits From Schmidt’s D9 Appearance

By Graham Spencer

Last night the annual D9 conference kicked off with an interview with Google’s Executive Chairman, Eric Schmidt. It led to a number of interesting revelations, perhaps of most significance is that he revealed Google has “just renewed [their] Map and Search agreements with Apple”.

The renewal of the Maps agreement confirms rumors we reported on last week where it was suggested that although Apple is looking to improve the iOS Maps application, it would not replace the Google service that powers it. Speculation about Apple launching their own Maps service was ignited last month after Apple posted the location tracking Q&A post, which talked of a crowd-sourced service to improve traffic information.

Speaking of the new platform war, fundamentally based on the Internet, Shmidt said there is, primarily, a gang of four that includes Google, Apple, Amazon and Facebook. He says that whilst there may be a debate about who is fifth and sixth (suggesting perhaps PayPal and Twitter), it is pretty clear that Microsoft is not included. Asked why, he says Microsoft is not driving the consumer revolution – they are focused on corporate and are doing so successfully – something that will likely continue for decades to come.

Whilst talking about the Chrome OS, Schmidt took off on a tangent and claimed that Chrome was a more secure browser. Then when prodded by Walt Mossberg on what else users could do to improve security, Schmidt said they “could use a Mac instead of a PC”, citing the observation that viruses are less likely to affect users.

When Google launched its cloud music offering, many were disappointed that it was just a locker for music to be stored, with no way to purchase music directly. Asked why Google failed at signing with any of the record labels, Schmidt simply says, “I’ve just not been successful in doing that”. Finally, make sure to jump the break to watch the (fictional) acting-CEO of News Corp, Jane Lynch, launch the D9 conference, with some jabs at The Daily and other News Corp entities.

[Via AllThingsD]

HockeyApp Brings Enhanced Beta Distribution For iOS Apps

By Graham Spencer

Launching today is HockeyApp, a new service for developers of iOS and soon Android and OS X apps. Its main function is to simplify the beta distribution process and collection of crash reports. Like other beta distribution tools and services, such as TestFlight, HockeyKit (for iOS apps) uses Apple’s over-the-air distribution process that was introduced in iOS 4.0.

HockeyApp, however, goes beyond just offering developers an easy way to distribute new beta builds. It also has a feature that lets developers automatically inform testers about a new beta version from within the app itself – even including release notes and potential to instantly update the app right then and there. Critically for developers, HockeyApp gives developers access to key data from crash reports and can optionally also give statistics on exactly what devices, iOS versions and languages were used and for how long.

HockeyApp will offer developers three plans, varying in cost but starting at $20 per month for 5 apps, 1GB storage and 100 users. Team members and testers won’t have to pay anything and there is a one-month trial for developers available. Jump the break for some screenshots of the service.

Federal Government Agencies Embrace The iPad, iPhone and Gmail

By Graham Spencer

iPads, iPhones, Gmail and Android phones; typically they have been the devices and services used (and loved) by consumers around the world. Yet in recent times they are increasingly becoming a reality for employees within the confines of the bureaucratic world of government departments. An article today in the Washington Post details how ‘federal government 2.0’ has embraced consumer devices, to solve real world problems and to appease government employees across the US.

Somewhere in America, perhaps at this very moment, a bad guy is under video surveillance. He is being watched, every movement, every step — but not on a little TV. That’s so 2009. Instead, a special agent from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is keeping tabs on an iPad.

It isn’t just President Obama that is lucky enough to own an iPad, employees in various departments in all arms of the US government are bringing them in to work and the IT staff have stopped restricting them and started embracing them. Vivek Kundra, the federal government’s chief information officer says that it’s not that people don’t like government or corporate style technology – they despise it.

Kundra’s answer to the issue of people using unauthorized devices is simple: Give them what they want.

Agilex, one of the companies contracted by the government to integrate Apple products into government agencies has said that “the demand we are seeing now in the last 90 days has been just extraordinary.” – “It’s like everybody is saying, ‘This is really happening here now’”. Gmail too has been widely adopted across many agencies in the Federal government including the State Department, NASA and the Army . Yet the best part is that it doesn’t just make the lives of government employees better, but it is also saving the government money.

[Via Washington Post]

Apple’s App Store Processes 59% Of All Mobile App Downloads

By Graham Spencer

Research2Guidance issued a new research report recently that indicates Apple is dominating other mobile app stores in terms of app downloads. In the first quarter of 2011 it is revealed that Apple’s App Store was host to 59% of all application downloads. This is despite a fall in 22% since the App Store first opened to a dominating position of serving 81% of all app downloads.

The report surveyed 58 app stores which is a significant increase from the 18 app stores that were available when the iPhone App Store launched in July of 2008. Unsurprisingly the Android Market is the strongest competitor to the App Store. It led to a deterioration of the App Store’s share of downloads in the second half of 2010, which fell by 24%.

The first quarter of 2011 has seen a stabilization of the App Store’s share of app downloads, which has actually increased by 2% - helped by the increased popularity of the iPad. Research2Guidance says in its report that the following two years will prove critical for Apple’s competitors if they want to reduce their hold over the market. In part this is solidified by the suggestion that once users spend significant amounts of money on apps, they are less likely to want to switch platforms.

[Research2Guidance via The Next Web]

MacBook Air Supplies Dwindle, June Or July Refresh Imminent

By Graham Spencer

We’ve previously reported on rumors of a June or July refresh for the MacBook Air and it looks like that time frame is firming up. 9to5 Mac today reported on reports they received in which supplies and shipments for the MacBook Air are constrained – a typical pattern ahead of product refreshes.

The refresh is likely to be minor with a specification bump and inclusion of Thunderbolt ports that have so far made it on to the MacBook Pro and iMac lines earlier this year. Similarly, Intel’s Sandy Bridge processors are also expected to make it into the refreshed MacBook Air, reports from two weeks ago suggest that Intel is working on ULV (ultra-low voltage) i5 and i7 processors, which would be perfect for the Air.

Prices for the current MacBook Air seem to reinforce an imminent update, with the refurbished models selling for only $829 on Apple’s website and Best Buy selling the base model for only $938.

[Via 9to5 Mac]

TypeTool Chooses The Right Font For Your App, Becomes Powerful With Photoshop Touch SDK

By Graham Spencer

Earlier this month, Adobe updated Photoshop to support the new Photoshop Touch SDK, which allows developers to build mobile apps that tie into and complement the full desktop version of Photoshop. Adobe themselves built three iPad apps that demonstrated the capabilities of the SDK, whilst they are neat we have been waiting to see how other developers would take advantage of the SDK in building innovative mobile apps.

TypeTool from appland is one of the first apps that takes advantage of the SDK. In essence, TypeTool is a simple app that aims to make the life of an iPhone designer or developer that much easier by assisting them in choosing the right font and font size for their app. There are two main features in TypeTool, the first of which is a size chart where you can preview what various fonts look like from sizes of 9pt to 32pt. The second key feature is the Typesetter where you can build up a basic UI, trying different fonts and font sizes to see how they look together.

Where the Photoshop Touch SDK comes in is with the Typesetter, previously TypeTool would let you email yourself the details of what fonts you choose, and a screenshot of what the fonts look like. However you can now opt to directly send your configuration into Photoshop, which will create a document that mirrors what you see on the iPhone with the specific fonts and sizes that you specified. From there you could either build up the rest of the design around the imported text or choose to copy over the text into an existing Photoshop document.

TypeTool is available on the iPhone for $2.99, to export to Photoshop you will need to have version 12.0.4 and be on the same network. The developers are considering building an iPad version as well as adding some more “designer tools” and increasing the usage of the Photoshop Touch SDK within the app.

If you’re you a developer of an iOS app that takes advantage of the Photoshop Touch SDK or know of a really innovative app that does, please let us know! Jump the break for some more screenshots.

Selling A Copy Every Second, The Heist Overtakes Angry Birds

By Graham Spencer

A few days ago we reported on a new game to hit the App Store, The Heist, which is an iPhone game from the team behind the popular MacHeist bundle. In just a few days it has done astoundingly well, managing to knock off Angry Birds from the top of the paid apps list in the App Store – which is no small feat.

It’s first day had 25,000 downloads according to The Loop, but on day two those figures skyrocketed to 89,798 purchases. Effectivelly that means for just its second day on sale, The Heist was selling more than 1 copy a second (there are 86,400 seconds in a day), supremely impressive for a paid app, even if the app is $0.99.

With revenues approaching $100,000 and sales already well above the 100,000 figure, its obvious to see that the MacHeist team have done a supremely good job in creating and marketing the game – some of the marketing included clues that were hidden in the first Twitter for Mac client this year. Will it sustain the top spot and keep off Angry Birds? Only time will tell.

[Via TechCrunch]

Mozilla Releases Firefox 6.0 Alpha

By Graham Spencer

Firefox 6, also referred to as Aurora, has just begun its development cycle and a rough alpha release is now available for testing and feedback. As with any alpha, it is in a very unfinished state at this point, but there are some notable new features that are included.

Those new features include new features for Panaorama, enhanced HTML5 support, new developer tools, improved add-ons manager and new permission manager window. The permissions manager is interesting in that it will allow users to give different sites varying amounts of permissions for cookies, pop-ups, offline storage and location access, giving users greater privacy controls. Whilst developers will likely be impressed with new features including a ‘Scratchpad’ that allows them to build and test JavaScript snippets on a site.

You may be scratching your head wondering why Aurora has gone into alpha when it was only in the past week or so that Firefox 5 went into Beta – that is all due to Mozilla’s development cycle where three major versions must be in active development at any one time. As a result, Firefox 4 is the mainstream and stable release build whilst version 5 is in Beta and now version 6 is in development as an alpha (or Aurora) build. You can download the Firefox 6 alpha here.

[Via Electronista]

Group Plans Protests At Apple Stores Over Proposed Tax Breaks

By Graham Spencer

On June 4, just days prior to WWDC, the US Uncut group plans to target Apple retail stores in protest against Apple’s support of the ‘Win America Campaign’ (WAC). The goal of the US Uncut organization is to fight companies that try to avoid taxes, and they are unhappy with what they claim is Apple lobbying Congress for a $4 billion tax cut. The group will be protesting for Apple to leave the WAC, cease such lobbying activities and to refrain from engaging in tax loopholes.

Apple plays huge games with their taxes. By disguising profits in the U.S. as foreign earnings in low-tax countries, Apple dodges billions of dollars of taxes they should be paying. We are all disappointed to see a great company like Apple participate in such a deceitful campaign that violates their commitment to operate in a socially responsible manner

The WAC group, which is supported by a number of other technology conglomerates including Microsoft, Google and Adobe, is currently lobbying Congress for the Freedom Invest Act of 2011 to lower taxes on American companies involved in selling goods and services overseas. The drafters of the bill claim the money companies save from taxes could be re-invested within the country.

Apple is US Uncut’s main target in the demonstrations on June 4^th and has put together an “action kit” with signs, leaflets, chants and slogans. The group will even enter Apple Stores and perform a “dance-in flash mob”, audaciously planning to record the result on the Apple computers on display. CNet contacted Apple for comment, but they did not respond. Jump the break for a video from US Uncut campaigning against Apple and the WAC.

[Via CNet]