Time Inc. Has Chosen Not To Use Apple’s Subscriptions

By Federico Viticci

Time Inc., one of the major magazine publishers in the US, has announced they’re not looking to implement Apple’s in-app subscriptions in future updates to their iPad magazines like Fortune, Sports Illustrated, or Time. The news comes after it was revealed last week the company had reached a deal with Apple to offer print subscribers free access to digital content on the iPad, breaking an impasse between the publisher and Apple, which wasn’t allowing apps to recognize a subscriber’s status and give out free content. It’s not clear at this point how Time Inc. will manage to keep their existing apps in the Store considering the developer’s deadline set for June 30.

AdAge reports Steve Sachs, Time Inc. exec VP for consumer marketing and sales, confirmed Time Inc. “has chosen” not to implement subscriptions, although the possibility of updating the magazine apps to use subscriptions in the future hasn’t been completely ruled out.

We have chosen not to do that,” Mr. Sachs said in an interview, “because when we look at who to partner with, the key parts of our principles include of course making sure that the look and feel of products is great for consumers and the ability to set pricing terms, but also receiving key consumer data about subscribers.”

“That is one of the major issues for us that we haven’t been able to agree on with Apple,” he said. Things could of course change eventually. “We’re not going to rule out having digital subscriptions down the road with iPad.

Clearly, Time Inc. couldn’t agree with Apple’s subscription terms, which require users to log in with their iTunes accounts, grant Apple a 30% cut off every recurring transaction and allow readers to opt-out from sharing personal information with the publisher – a key detail the publishing industry relies on to trigger targeted advertising. Today’s Time Inc. announcement follows a flood of recent reports that saw many US publishers jumping on Apple’s subscription system, like Hearst last week or Conde Nast today with the release of The New Yorker for iPad featuring monthly and annual in-app subscriptions.

Apple Already Running Nuance Tech in New Data Center, WWDC Announcement?

By Federico Viticci

Following last week’s speculation of Apple negotiating a deal with voice-recognition company Nuance for future integration in iOS devices, TechCrunch reports today more details on the rumored collaboration between Apple and Nuance, which should be a major announcement at next month’s WWDC in San Francisco. According to the website, the partnership between the two companies goes as far as to allow Siri – previously purchased by Apple – to be integrated into iOS 5, using Nuance’s voice recognition technology in the backend. Siri, in fact, was based on Nuance’s tech while providing more information of its own, and since the acquisition last year Apple had to make sure Nuance would still license the software (they even hold multiple patents for it) to use in the future version of Siri – likely a native feature in iOS 5.

For this reason, TechCrunch speculates Apple may be already running Nuance’s tech on its servers in North Carolina, through the massive data center that should begin operations this Spring. With deals likely already inked ahead of the WWDC, Apple might want to pass information through their own cloud to make voice recognition faster for all users, scalable, and more secure.

In digging into the information about the relationship between the two companies, we had heard that Apple might actually already be using Nuance technology in their new (but yet to be officially opened) massive data center in North Carolina. Since then, we’ve gotten multiple independent confirmations that this is indeed the case. And yes, this is said to be the keystone of a partnership that Apple is likely to announce with Nuance at WWDC next month.

More specifically, we’re hearing that Apple is running Nuance software — and possibly some of their hardware — in this new data center. Why? A few reasons. First, Apple will be able to process this voice information for iOS users faster. Second, it will prevent this data from going through third-party servers. And third, by running it on their own stack, Apple can build on top of the technology, and improve upon it as they see fit.

Valued at over $6 billion, an acquisition of Nuance was quickly dismissed last week as an expense Apple wasn’t ready to consider, suggesting a partnership would make more sense in order to keep things running (in Siri and the future iOS integration) at a lower cost. The fact that Apple may be running Nuance’s tech on its own backend, however, seems to suggest that Apple has at least negotiated a way to get direct control of the service, which, again, should power the next version of Siri for iOS 5. TechCrunch speculates voice recognition will be one of the WWDC’s big announcements, although it’s unclear whether third-party developers will get immediate access through a series of APIs or not.

The WWDC kicks off on June 6, and Apple has already formally announced that they’ll unveil the future of iOS and OS X at the developer-oriented event. Voice recognition has long been in the rumors as a major new functionality of iOS 5 – alongside a new notification system, maps, and social services – which should be previewed next month and released this Fall at Apple’s usual September media event.

Microsoft Azure Toolkit for iOS Now Available

By Federico Viticci

Following the release for Windows Phone 7 in March, Microsoft today announced the availability of the Azure toolkit for iOS, which can be downloaded now from GitHub. Similarly to Amazon Web Services, Microsoft’s Azure is a cloud platform hosted on the company’s servers that allows developers to build, host and scale web applications. Today’s iOS toolkit includes resources and services for developers to integrate Azure in their iPhone and iPad apps, including an Objective-C library to work with Azure services (such as storage and push notifications), documentation, a sample iOS app with full Azure storage integration, as well full source code for the aforementioned Objective-C library with Xcode project files. More details on Azure Toolkit for iOS can be found here.

Last March we released the Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows Phone 7, which provided a set of generic services for Windows Azure. This toolkit was the first step in enabling developers to build native experiences on multiple platforms using Windows Azure. As the next step in this process, today we’re pleased to announce the release of the Windows Azure Toolkit for iOS. This toolkit contains resources and services designed to make it easier for iOS developers to use Windows Azure.

Downloads:

Microsoft has also release a Cloud Ready package to simply the process of setting up Azure services, and it has announced the release of an Android toolkit for next month. [via The Next Web]

iPhone and iPad Drive Softbank’s Profit Growth

By Federico Viticci

As reported by The Wall Street Journal, Japanese mobile carrier Softbank (the third largest carrier in the country by number of subscribers) has announced record operating profit for the January - March quarter with net profit surging to Y47.41 billion from the Y1.85 billion posted last year. Thanks to high demand for iPhones and iPads, the carrier managed to move away from last year’s “unusual” profit loss, due to the adoption of 3G mobile services, and the discontinuation of 2G. Softbank is the only carrier that sells the iPhone in Japan, and the high demand for the device in a market otherwise saturated by alternative smartphones helped the company achieving record profit during the quarter.

The expansion of the smartphone market led by the iPhone and iPad was a huge factor that contributed to the growth,” said Softbank President and Chief Executive Masayoshi Son.

Softbank’s earnings also reported average revenue per user – also known as ARPU – rose to Y4,210 (from Y4,070) thanks to the iPhone’s growth in Japan. The iPhone became Japan’s best selling cellphone last October, and Softbank later announced a new promotion to give users an iPad for free upon subscribing to the carrier’s two-year data plan.

Amazon Cloud Player Now Works with iOS Safari

By Federico Viticci

Back in late March, Amazon launched Cloud Player for the web and Android devices, an online interface that, relying on music uploaded to your Amazon account via Cloud Drive, allowed you to stream music from the cloud via a web browser or the native Android application, built into the OS with direct connection to Amazon’s servers to fetch and stream songs on the go. The service, however, wasn’t working with iOS devices, and it wasn’t a Flash issue: somehow, the website itself didn’t want to cooperate with Mobile Safari on iPhones, iPod touches and iPads. We noted that there was a way to make it work by using an alternative browser like iCab Mobile and changing the app’s user agent, but it was convoluted and far from being a reliable alternative to playing music locally in the iPod app, or from third-party services like MOG and Spotify, which do have native iOS apps. The lack of iOS compatibility for Cloud Player left many wondering whether the company intentionally decided to block the service, betting exclusively on the Android platform – which is the foundation for Amazon’s new app marketplace.

As noted by TechCrunch today, however, Cloud Player seems to be working in the iOS browser now. Songs stream just fine, and they even pause automatically during an incoming phone call or if a Push Notification is received. It’s unclear how Amazon exactly “unlocked” the feature and why it went online so quietly without any major announcement, but my guess is the Cloud Player team simply added a string to allow Mobile Safari to start a QuickTime streaming session within the browser.

You might think this had to due with Flash or another technology that iOS wasn’t compatible with, but it wasn’t. It looked like something else was simply blocking it from working. Well, good news. That’s no longer the case.

If you visit Amazon’s Cloud Player through the Safari web browser on an iOS device, you’ll see that it does in fact now work. You’ll first hit a warning page telling you that your browser is not supported, but just ignore that. Click into the music in your drive and it will begin playing.

MG Siegler notes the implementation is still far from perfect (uploading requires Flash, but you wouldn’t be able to upload files from iOS anyway) and the solution implies listening to music in a regular browser window. Still, it’s a start for Amazon, and it reignites speculation of a native Cloud Player app for iOS coming in the near future. The website, for now, is restricted to US access only.

Rumors in the past months pointed at Apple building a full-featured music streaming service based on iTunes, wrapped inside the upcoming iCloud infrastructure for Mac and iOS devices. There’s little doubt at this point Apple hasn’t at least considered the possibility of letting users upload their music collection or subscribe to an à la carte service for streaming songs off the cloud. With the WWDC roughly a month away, we should know more about Apple’s cloud plans and new music options soon.

Apple Moves From #59 to #4 In Barron’s 500

By Federico Viticci

In its annual Top 500 list of American companies that have generated ”the most revenue growth and cash returns”, Barron’s outlines how Apple has jumped from the 59th position to #4 thanks to strong sales of iPhones, iPads and iPods, as well as revenue coming from the classic line of desktop and portable Macs. And whilst the Barron’s 500 list ”honors companies for past success”, but doesn’t guarantee profitable success, high demand for the recently released iPad 2 (defined “staggering” by Apple COO Tim Cook at the company’s Q2 2011 earnings call) and the updated MacBook Air line (rumored to go under a refresh in a few weeks to feature Thunderbolt and Sandy Bridge processors) seems to suggest that Apple’s 2011 is off to go a very profitable start.

Apple, ranked No. 4 this year, has done all that to perfection. It has generated stellar sales growth and handsome profits from the iPod, iPhone and related products, and its shares have rallied 321%, to 347, since the stock market bottomed in March 2009. Yet the stock, which trades for only 12.2 times next year’s expected earnings, still isn’t richly valued. Other tech stocks, including Western Digital, Research In Motion, Broadcom and EMC, also rank among this year’s top 20.

Last week, Apple ranked 35th in Fortune 500 list of top American companies, surpassing both Microsoft and Boeing, ranked at 38th and 36th, respectively. Ranking #1 in Barron’s 500 is Oshkosh, a truck maker, with packaged food maker J.M. Smucker hitting the #2 spot.

“Inside Apple” Reveals Steve Jobs Anecdotes, Apple’s Little Known Facts

By Federico Viticci

In Adam Lashinsky’s latest feature story on Fortune magazine’s new issue – available now on the iPad at $4.99 as single in-app purchase, and free for Fortune subscribers – the author reveals several unknown anecdotes about the company, internal management, and Steve Jobs. The story is full of interesting details for Apple fans and journalists, as well as little known facts about the personality of the CEO, Steve Jobs.

Lashinsky, for example, tells the story of the 2008 launch of the iPhone 3G and MobileMe, which didn’t go exactly well for Apple. MobileMe – a rebranded version of iTools and the .Mac service – promised to offer continuous web access to mail and calendars, as well as sync options for iPhones and iPod touches. The initial rollout, however, was affected by slow loading times and servers constantly down, which lead to speculation as to whether MobileMe was really ready for public release, with many questioning the premium fee Apple was asking for one-year usage of the service. In Fortune’s story, Lashinsky says Steve Jobs summoned the entire MobileMe team for a meeting at the company’s on-campus Town Hall, accusing everyone of “tarnishing Apple’s reputation.” He told the members of the team they “should hate each other for having let each other down”, and went on to name new executives on the spot to run the MobileMe team. A few excerpts from the article:

Can anyone tell me what MobileMe is supposed to do?” Having received a satisfactory answer, he continues, “So why the f*** doesn’t it do that?

Jobs was also particularly angry about the Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg not liking MobileMe:

Mossberg, our friend, is no longer writing good things about us.

MobileMe went under major design changes in the past years, reliability improved and the service is now rumored to go under a complete facelift by the launch of iOS 5 with a new name, iCloud. Read more

Reeder for Mac Beta Update: New Features, Tweetie-like UI

By Federico Viticci

I had some pretty good words about the first beta of Reeder for Mac that came out last December, but since then it seemed like Silvio Rizzi – the main developer of Reeder – disappeared from our radars releasing minor updates to the iPhone and iPad versions (focused on Readability integration) and extending the expiration date of Reeder for Mac (public beta) by one month at a time. After a few updates following the feedback Rizzi got after the (insanely popular) launch of the beta, the app was left available for download with a few fixes coming out every once in a while. Six months later, it looks like we’re back to the start: a new beta of Reeder for Mac with lots of new features is available (and like the last time, I’ve been testing it for a while), but the app is still nowhere to be seen in the Mac App Store. This time, however, with Reeder for Mac Public Beta 14, we might have an almost-complete and full-featured RSS reader for our desktops that not only looks better than ever, but it’s also packed with features, new gestures, and interface schemes.

The new beta is available for download here. Without re-reviewing the app all over again (in spite of the additions it still retains 80% of the features seen in the first beta, reviewed here), I’d like to focus on the key areas that Rizzi improved, redesigned and, overall, simply evolved into something new. First off, the app comes with a new optional “minimized layout” that, following a trend started by the original Tweetie for Mac and later re-ignited by other apps like the popular Sparrow email client, places your Google Reader’s source favicons in a narrow sidebar on the left, with unread items in the main panel. The minimized layout, unlike the standard one, doesn’t come with a right panel to read articles: everything happens in a single window, much like Twitter for Mac doesn’t display additional sidebars and popovers when you’re interacting with your timeline. In the new Reeder beta, clicking on a title will open the article (with a neat animation) in the same panel; tap the close button, and the article will bounce back to reveal the main list of feeds again. In this new single-window approach, all the interactions with Google Reader or external services either happen though gestures or keyboard shortcuts – support for both of them has been improved in the new version.

Reeder for Mac retains an iOS-like feel that’s even more visible in today’s beta. The app was accused of being the first iOS app coming to the Mac without considering the nature of the desktop platform; however, as Apple is proving with the Lion developer builds and the latest updates to its flagship applications, it really looks like the future of the Mac will be heavily inspired by iOS. Back to the Mac, as Steve Jobs said, and Rizzi knows this. Reeder for Mac feels like a desktop iOS app more than ever, with support for swipes and pinches to navigate and open / close articles, monochrome icons in the top toolbar to share an article or open it in the browser, and a general feel attached to it that makes Reeder perfect for OS X Lion already, in spite of the OS not being available yet. Whilst the classic reading mode reminds us this is a desktop application meant for RSS power users with lots of features and deep Google Reader integration, the minimized mode and enhanced gesture-based navigation proves, once again, that Reeder is an app with an iOS background that’s coming to a new Mac ecosystem, the one that will start populating our MacBooks and iMacs this summer.

The app is far from finished, though. Whilst Rizzi tells me he’s still planning on making the app available through the Mac App Store, there are some aspects of the app that are not yet completed, such as full subscription management and downloads. However, this new beta confirms that the developer has been busy addressing the issues reported in the first versions: search finally works, and he even implemented a new “appearance” settings panel that will allow you to change Reeder’s color scheme from the much criticized sepia background to something more Mac-like. I love this preference panel: I’m a “standard” user as you can tell from the screenshots in this post, and I appreciate the little touches like the Preferences window fading to let you see the modifications you’re making to the app. Furthermore, the “article list row height” slider enables me to make the app even more minimal with narrower headlines. I quickly skim through hundreds of headlines in my daily news workflow, and I don’t really need to see a three-line preview before deciding to open an entire article. That’s why minimized mode works for me (by the way, you can switch between the two modes at any time by hitting a button in the bottom toolbar).

One thing I’ve always wanted from Reeder for Mac but Rizzi never implemented is the ability to click on a website’s favicon in the upper toolbar to reveal options like “unsubscribe from this source” or “refresh this source only.” Perhaps they’ll come in the final release – which should happen relatively soon at this point, considering the entire app has been rewritten since the original beta and most of the functionalities are working.

Overall, this new beta of Reeder is a terrific improvement over the past version, which was aimed at porting the Reeder experience to OS X, but perhaps lacked the right amount of features that could make it absolutely stand out. With minimized mode, more gestures and an iOS-like approach to news reading, Reeder for Mac leads the way for great things to come. Download the beta here, and check out more screenshots below. Read more

Rovio Nominated for Three Develop Awards

By Federico Viticci

When people spend 200 million minutes playing your game every day, you’d start thinking you’ve done some good to the world of mobile games. Rovio, makers of Angry Birds, have been nominated for three different Develop awards, as noted by TUAW, which include Best Use of a License or IP, Best Indie Studio, and Best Handheld Studio. The Develop awards focus on the best names in the video game and software interaction industry, and Rovio’s inclusion in the nominations doesn’t surprise at all: the last 12 months have been insane for the Finnish company, which saw its game become the most popular in the App Store worldwide and collaborated with Hollywood studios for a spin-off of the series based on animated film Rio.

The Develop Industry Excellence Awards will take place on Wednesday, July 20th, 2011 at the Hilton Brighton Metropole Hotel, UK. The awards and categories include sections like Technical Innovation and Audio Accomplishment, as well as Business Development and Publishing Hero. We’re pretty sure Rovio will manage to bring home some awards this summer – which will also see the release of new Angry Birds games including, perhaps, a real sequel to the original iPhone game.