iPhone Homescreen Organization →

iPhone Home Screen Organization

I know all of this is pretty silly. But by tweaking my setup over the years, I’ve gotten to a point where I can easily and simply hop into an app, do what I need to do, and get out, all with one hand. That saves time, which adds value to my life. Isn’t that what all of these fancy gizmos and apps are supposed to do?

Stephen Hackett is right: discussing about iPhone homescreen organization might sound silly and way-too-nerdy for the average iPhone user, but I think it’s important to cover these details for devices that are making us more productive every day – devices that, ultimately, help us save a lot of time. Personally, I keep the apps I go frequently go back to in the central part of the screen, as that plays nice with my hand holding the iPhone and my thumb waiting to tap around. Cody on the other hand says, “I just put icons everywhere like a normal person.”

Check out my iPhone homescreen in the screenshot above. The red rectangle indicates my most launched apps these days. And yes, Tweetbot is coming out soon and it’s fantastic.

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Rumor of Sony Camera In iPhone 5 A Misunderstanding?

By Federico Viticci

During the weekend, a rumor about Sony being selected by Apple as the only supplier for the image sensors in the next-generation iPhone quickly made the rounds of the Internet following some statements from Sony’s CEO Howard Stringer in an interview with Walt Mossberg at Carnegie Hall in New York City. The report came as a surprise to Apple fans and market watchers as the company has been using camera lenses provided by OmniVision in the iPhone 3GS (3.2 MP), iPhone 4 ( 5 MP), iPod touch 4th gen. and iPad 2 for the past few years.

The rumor suggested that, due to the earthquake and tsunami that damaged Sony’s Japanese facility in Sendai, shipments of image sensors to Apple would be delayed.

Stringer just said that their camera image sensor facility in Sendai was affected by the tsunami. Getting image sensors to Apple will be delayed.

The Wall Street Journal also published a blog post with a partial transcript of the interview:

Early on, he raised the irony of Sony supplying camera components for Apple devices. It “always puzzles me,” he said. “Why would I make Apple the best camera?”

It is unclear what devices he was talking about as Sony isn’t known to supply key camera components, known as image sensors, to Apple; A Sony spokeswoman declined to comment and an Apple spokesperson couldn’t be reached for comment.

Pogoplug iPhone App Updated With New UI and Faster Media Players

By Federico Viticci

If your digital life is in the cloud as much as mine is, you’ve probably heard of the Pogoplug: in its Pro version, the $99 device can be configured on your local network to share content from attached external drives over the Internet. That means your music, movies and photos stored on regular USB drives can be easily accessed from anywhere thanks to the Pogoplug’s sharing capabilities; plus, the device also allows you to share files, “cloud print” and add unlimited storage as long as you keep attaching external drives to the Pogoplug. Basically, it’s a great way to put your media library in the cloud with minimal setup and, at the same time, get a bunch of additional features depending on the Pogoplug you choose. The great news is, Pogoplug is getting a lot better for iOS users thanks to the recent 4.0 update for the iPhone app.

Pogoplug 4.0 for iPhone adds a new dashboard design with slick icons that allow you to easily navigate between the various sections of the app; among these, a completely new music player that sports new indexing features which don’t force you anymore to manually load songs by letter from the library, but continually index the existing contents of your Pogoplug. The music player is faster, works in the background, and it’s got a new bottom toolbar to switch between songs, artists, albums and genres. The photo and video players have been updated in version 4.0, too, with a cleaner look and faster performances.

Last, the entire file browsing section of the iPhone app got a facelift and a huge speed boost to feel more stable and responsive. As reported by Peter Redmer at Pogoplugged, “navigating through your multiple Pogoplugs, attached drives, and desktops is now much easier and more streamlined”.

You can find the Pogoplug app for iPhone here. You can check out Pogoplug devices on the official website.

Official Facebook App Updated, Gets Map View and “Unfriend”

By Federico Viticci

An update to the official Facebook app for iPhone was released in the App Store a few minutes ago, and it adds a number of new functionalities and design improvements. The app, which reaches version 3.4, introduces a new Map view for Facebook Places: friends that have checked in places nearby are now displayed through thumbnail previews on a Google Map; also, the app can now let you check in to Events you’re attending.

The app feels slightly faster and more responsive than before; the News Feed and Notifications UI have been improved (although I still haven’t noticed visible changes) and, overall, switching between sections from the main dashboard should be snappier now.

Perhaps more importantly, Facebook now lets you “unfriend” people directly from the iPhone. Tap on the Friends tab, select a person and hit “Unfriend” in the action button. Previously, this feature was only available on the desktop.

You can find Facebook for iPhone here. More screenshots below.

Update: MG Siegler at TechCrunch details how the new event check-ins work:

To be able to check-in to an event you have to (obviously) be invited and RSVP’d “yes” to attending. Your location also has to match the location of the listed event venue, and it has to be the correct time of the event. All of this will help with gaming.

Switching From MobileMe to Google Sync

By Federico Viticci

As you might have read if you follow me on Twitter, my MobileMe subscription expired last week. In the past year, I’ve relied on MobileMe’s services (but not the webapp) for syncing all my contacts, calendars, emails and bookmarks from the desktop to the cloud and back to iOS devices such as my iPhone 4 and iPad. But when the subscription was nearing its expiration date (Apple notifies you weeks before with a series of emails and a brief note on Me.com), I was left with a question: should I renew? Considering all the rumors about MobileMe being completely revamped and going free we’ve heard in the past months, I was skeptical about a renewal because I didn’t want to pay for a service that is likely going through some major changes and won’t no longer be supported (at least in its current iteration) a year from now. And even if I still have access to some sections of my old MobileMe account (mail, contacts and Find My iPhone), I decided that renewing wasn’t simply worth it and it was time for me to find an alternative – even a temporary one until MobileMe is updated to include new features and pricing schemes. That alternative is Google Sync, and here’s my experience so far. Read more

This Album Was Recorded Entirely In GarageBand for iPad

By Federico Viticci

As noted by Jim Dalrymple at The Loop, we knew this was going to happen. Ever since the release of GarageBand for iPad, I have wondered: “when will someone come out with an album recorded entirely using this app?” Well, someone did, and the album is now available for download on iTunes.

This is not the first time musicians have shown interest in Apple’s iPad as a content creation platform for music. The Gorillaz, for example, released last year a new album completely realized using music apps available in the App Store. Similarly, hundreds of videos surfaced on Youtube and other social media websites showing people making music on the iPad or doing live performances with the tablet and other iOS devices. This new experiment from pop punk band The Ultramods relies on Apple’s GarageBand software for the recording of digital instruments, and voice through the iPad’s mic.

Pop punk band The Ultramods on Monday released its latest album that was done using GarageBand for iPad’s eight-track recording studio. All of the instruments used to record the album come bundled in GarageBand, according to the band.

The Ultramods’ “Underwear Party” is available now at $9.99 in the iTunes Store. It’ll be interesting to see whether or not Damon Albarn will consider GarageBand’s features for a new, digital-only Gorillaz record.

MacBook Airs To Generate $2.2 Billion In Annual Revenue

By Federico Viticci

Since the official unveiling at Apple’s “Back to the Mac” event in October 2010, the new MacBook Air family has seen a terrific success among consumers: the incredibly thin design, combined with the durability of aluminum and faster performances have turned the new MacBook Airs into affordable, yet powerful machines that retain the small form factor of the previous line. Moreover, the new 11-inch model has set a new trend with several users considering the machine as a tablet-sized device with the capabilities of a classic desktop computer – such as a physical keyboard, trackpad support and USB connectivity. We knew the Air was selling very well, but J.P. Morgan analyst Mark Moskowitz believes the MacBook Air family could become a $2.2 billion revenue business for Apple if the current pricing model and design is maintained.

Digital Daily reports today that, according to Moskowitz, the “quasi-tablet” MacBook Air is just the beginning of a trend, and if Apple manages to keep “pricing stable” and a 420,000 sales per quarter rate (as seen in Q4 2010) the possibilities for the company to turn this line into the most successful one among Mac computers are huge.

C4Q10 was the first quarter in which the MacBook Air accounted for greater than 10 percent of total Apple PC units. More importantly, the MacBook Air accounted for 15% of total notebook unit sales during the quarter, versus 5 percent in the prior year. Even with the MacBook Air’s strong performance in C4Q10, it represented only roughly 5% of total Apple Mac units and revenues for C2010. We see ample opportunity for this percentage to increase over time, given the improved tech specs and more attractive pricing of the second-generation MacBook Air.

A report by Cnet in February hinted at an upcoming refresh for the MacBook Airs in June to include new Intel Sandy Bridge processors, which should dramatically boost performances of the MBA. Since the release of the new MacBook Pros five weeks ago, many are also speculating Apple will implement the Thunderbolt technology in the next-generation MacBook Airs. A refresh in June would play nice with Apple’s WWDC announcements, although a number of reports in the past week suggested Apple won’t announce new hardware at its developer event, focusing on Lion and an iOS 5 preview. On April 20th, Apple will release its Q2 2011 financial results.

Financial Times Doesn’t Want To Enable iOS Subscriptions In Its iPad App

By Federico Viticci

Following a statement from late February in which Pearson’s CEO Marjorie Scardino expressed her concerns about the Financial Times iPad application having to comply to Apple’s new rules on iTunes subscriptions for apps, managing director of FT.com Rob Grimshaw told Reuters today that the publication won’t give up their “subscriber relationship” to Apple – which has implemented an opt-in policy so users can decide whether or not their personal data should be shared with a publisher. Apple also takes a 30% cut off every subscription sold through the App Store, inside iOS applications. According to a previous report, developers will need to update their existing publishing apps to include subscriptions by June.

Currently, the Financial Times sells subscriptions to the print and digital editions of the paper on their website – a method that allows the publisher to collect subscribers’ data to promote various products and advertisements to the audience. This kind of “relationship” can’t be easily achieved with Apple’s new terms, which are optional for the user in order to protect privacy. The Financial Times says they “have a great relationship with Apple”, too, but if the business model doesn’t work out they are ready to pull the app from the App Store and release it somewhere else. Perhaps as a web app, perhaps on Android.

We don’t want to lose our direct relationship with our subscribers. It’s at the core of our business model,” Rob Grimshaw told Reuters in an interview on Monday.

He said he was hopeful of a positive outcome to negotiations with Apple, but added: “If it turns out that one or another channel doesn’t mix with the way we want to do business, there’s a large number of other channels available to us.

The Financial Times isn’t providing additional details on where the iPad app will end up if subscriptions aren’t implemented by June, but many are speculating Pearson (owner of the FT) will focus on Android and “other tablets”. The situation is interesting as the FT iPad app is generating 20% of the publication’s subscribers and millions in revenue – but they don’t want to comply to Apple’s terms as, in their own words, they “have something to lose”.

Review: Mr. Reader Takes On Reeder For King of iPad RSS Apps

By Federico Viticci

I read a lot on my iPad. Either with Instapaper, Read It Later, Flipboard or iBooks, there’s lots of content to consume and these apps made specifically for the tablet are a real pleasure to use. I don’t reckon I read as many articles saved from the web or discovered through social media on the iPhone as much as I do on the iPad. But of course, Instapaper and Twitter aside, there’s another category of apps I’m constantly going back to: RSS readers. Both for work and personal purposes, RSS plays a huge role in my workflow that requires me to stay on top of news, save items for later, and forward them to my colleagues. Google Reader is my RSS service of choice.

On the iPad, there’s no doubt Silvio Rizzi’s Reeder has become the most popular RSS app currently available on the App Store. I love Reeder, and I use it on the Mac and iPhone as well. Reeder is beautiful, fast, stable, has lots of options and syncs with Google Reader. Ever since it came out on the iPad last year, I haven’t looked back. But you know I’m always curious to try out new things and alternatives, because you never know what might be coming out from the minds (and Xcodes) of thousands of iOS developers out there. Mr. Reader, an iPad app released last week in the App Store, is a new Google Reader client that I’ve been testing for the past 3 weeks. I was impressed by the quality of the app, so I took it for a spin on my homescreen. Read more