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Kickstarter: Pocket Tripod Slips Into Your Wallet

Pocket Tripod, an iPhone stand that’s no bigger than a couple credit cards, provides a steady platform for propping your iPhone up on a table, nightstand, or kitchen counter. Only 2.3mm thin, Pocket Tripod was designed to be practical, available for any given moment to fill a variety of needs. Pocket Tripod unfurls to become a angled stand on an airline tray or an immediate tripod for capturing a family portrait. Because of the iPhone’s uniform edges and design, the stand is able to accommodate the iPhone in a variety of positions in portrait or landscape, seating it vertically or tilted back at any angle.

The card sized stand was designed to meet manufacturing goals and to withstand abuse. As the stand packs flat and unfurls or disassembles to prop up the iPhone, ensuring the stand doesn’t wear out is a concern. Geometrical Inc., the company behind Pocket Tripod, claims that its design is up to the challenge of everyday use.

Kickstarter pledges start at $20 for a black or white model, which are currently all sold out. For $25, backers can expected an expedited copy of the Pocket Tripod off of the assembly line if the project is successful. Pocket Tripod has a goal of $45,000 with 29 days to go. Pocket Tripod is expected to retail for $30 when it’s available.

Learn more and back Pocket Tripod on Kickstarter here.

Tweetbot for Mac 1.3 Adds Media Timeline, More Tweaks

Following the 2.8 update released on iOS in April, Tapbots today updated Tweetbot for Mac to version 1.3, which adds various tweaks to the interface as well as the media timeline that debuted on the iPhone and iPad.

To access the new media timeline, which provides an inline media view of all timelines in Tweetbot, you can hit ⌘F and click on the icon next to the search bar, or, alternatively, choose View > Media Timeline (⌥⌘M with the keyboard). The media timeline retains the same functionality and design that Tapbots first brought to the iPhone; to switch back to the default timeline, you can click another icon next to the search bar or go to View > Default Timeline (⌥⌘T).

Complying with Twitter’s new display guidelines, the tweet detail view now comes with retweet and favorite counters – again, implemented just like in Tweetbot for iOS. And alongside a series of bug fixes and improvements, Tweetbot 1.3 brings a welcome enhancement to profile views: besides Cover Image support, you can now double-click the titlebar on a profile to scroll back to the top. Double-clicking again will scroll a profile’s timeline to the top as well.

Tweetbot for Mac 1.3 is available now on the Mac App Store.

Apple Introduces New Low-End 16 GB iPod Touch

Apple today quietly updated its online Store to launch a new low-end iPod touch that replaces the fourth-generation model. Eric Slivka reports at MacRumors:

Apple today made a quiet update to its iPod touch lineup, launching a new 16 GB fifth-generation model without a rear camera for $229. The new iPod touch, which is only available with a black front and silver back, replaces the fourth-generation iPod touch that Apple had continued to offer since the introduction of new models late last year. The new model is available now in Apple’s online store and should be available in the company’s retail stores starting tomorrow.

New design aside, there are a series of notable additions for the new low-end iPod touch. Removing the rear-facing camera and 16 GB of storage from the higher-end iPod models, Apple could reach the $229 price point, which is $70 cheaper than the fifth-generation iPod family. Keeping the front-facing camera (bumped to a 1.2 MP “HD” status) allows Apple to keep FaceTime and ensure basic compatibility with third-party iOS camera apps.

Apple is, essentially, future-proofing the iPod touch family: adding Lightning, a taller Retina screen, a dual-core A5 chip, faster WiFi on the 5GHz band, and, presumably, more RAM than the 256 MB found in the fourth-gen iPod, the new 16 GB iPod touch will certainly be capable of running iOS 7 and future updates. It’ll be interesting to see if iOS 7 will run on the just-discontinued iPod touch 4th gen, which had less RAM than the iPhone 4 (512 MB), also released in 2010.

On the new iPod touch webpage, Apple features the higher-end iPod models as the ones with iSight and loop – the latter absent from today’s new low-end model.

ReadKit 2.0 Adds Smart Folders, Built-in RSS, Fever, and More

ReadKit initially answered the requests for a proper Instapaper and Readability desktop app, including Pocket and later adding support for popular bookmarking sites like Delicious and Pinboard. Bringing together the multiple places where people are likely to save stuff on the web, ReadKit 2.0 adds offline support for RSS to the mix, and also includes support for Fever and NewsBlur. But by far, my favorite feature is smart folders.

I have a big backlog of articles I have to read through in Pocket, but I’m only interested in a few topics at the moment. Smart folders act as ReadKit’s playlists, bringing forward articles based a set of rules. For example, I can make sure I’ve caught up on all the games I like by looking for keywords in the title.

ReadKit 2.0 also adds a few new options for readers in the preferences, such the option to save and restore reading positions and to cache images locally. Under the hood you’ll find improve sync performance and various other bug fixes.

ReadKit 2.0 is a free update for previous Mac App Store customers, and is currently available for $4.99. With the exception of newly added services, our initial review of the app still holds true.

Twitter For iOS Update Brings Wider Timelines, New Tweet Composer

A few minutes ago, Twitter updated its official iOS app to include a number of improvements for the app’s visual appearance.

On the iPhone, Twitter got rid of the margins at the sides of timelines: the app now uses a wider timeline design that feels more natural and less constrained. Comparing the screenshot above with an older version of the app, you can see how today’s new design makes more sense and is in line with timelines we’re used to seeing in other iOS apps.

The tweet composer for iPhone has also received attention, getting an updated look that lets you see how a tweet containing images will look like when it’s posted. The tweet composer, besides revealing photos in your Library in the same area occupied by the keyboard, embeds a preview of a photo you’re attaching below the status update, with an “x” button to immediately remove it and revert to a text-only tweet.

Twitter 5.7 is available on the App Store.

Rdio for Mac Gets New Player

A few minutes ago, music streaming service Rdio updated its website and Mac app (which is largely web-based) with a new “bigger, bolder” player. Inspired by the iOS app’s recent redesigns, the player sits at the bottom of the window, styled with a blurred preview of the currently playing song’s artwork. As you click the list icon in the bottom right, you’ll get a larger album art view (screenshot) with a summary of upcoming songs (and a larger, blurred artwork in the background).

The new player is a big change in terms of visual appearance – it certainly is in contrast with Rdio’s otherwise clean and minimal design focused on whitespace, text, and smaller thumbnails. Last week, Rdio updated its iOS app to include a similar redesign for the sidebar.

Rdio for Mac can be downloaded here.

Tim Cook at D11

Apple CEO Tim Cook will be joining Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher tonight for D11’s opening session at the Terranea Resort in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. The Wall Street Journal’s D: All Things Digital conference begins today on May 28th and ends on May 30th, inviting on stage several industry tech titans such as Dick Costolo of Twitter and Elon Musk of Tesla to discuss the impact of today’s technology and what’s in store for the future.

Tim Cook, having spoken at D10, has stayed the course at Apple by introducing a brand new iPhone, a more powerful iPad, and the incredibly successful iPad mini. New, industry changing Macs were also introduced in the form of the MacBook Pro with Retina display and nearly razor thin iMacs. But he’s also been hard at work pushing Apple in new directions, switching up assumed product release dates and hinting at new opportunities, suggesting new product lines during fiscal conference calls. Although Apple had an incredible 2nd fiscal quarter for 2013, publications like the Wall Street Journal have tried to rewrite the narrative, suggesting that demand for Apple products is falling in the face of strong competition and that innovation is stale due to the lack of new products. Rumor has it, however, that the company is remaining steadfast and focused on bringing to light a new look and feel for their flagship operating system, iOS, re-imaging the appearance of a core interface that’s been a mainstay on the iPhone since 2007.

Much of the interest around new product lines and iOS’ expected rethinking has been driven by Tim Cook’s management switch up that occurred last October, where Senior Vice President of iOS Software Scott Forstall and Senior Vice President of Retail were let go as Jonathan Ive stepped in to oversee Human Interface design across the company. Bob Mansfield, instead of retiring, was promoted to Senior Vice President of Technologies while Craig Federighi would take the helm of Senior Vice President of Software Engineering. It was an unexpected simplifying of Apple’s core management structure, the conclusion of which likely awaits at WWDC’s opening Keynote on June 10th.

Then there’s Apple’s doubling of the capital return program, as well recent Senate hearings, where Tim Cook has defended Apple’s tax policies concerning the large amounts of cash Apple keeps in safe havens overseas.

With these events in mind, tonight’s D11 should bring forward Tim Cook’s perspective on the current condition of Apple and where it’s headed. At D10, Tim Cook was asked about his relationship with Steve Jobs, what that meant to him, and figuring out who he was as a person. This time, we should expect a lot of talk focusing on his vision, how he’s reigning in the company as his own, and how he views the competition as it currently stands.

All Things D will not have a live stream of the event, so we’ll be following along with others in attendance. Be sure to check out: Engadget, The Verge, and MacRumors for extensive coverage.

Sponsor: Creaceed

Our thanks to Creaceed for sponsoring MacStories this week with Prizmo.

Prizmo makes scanning easy, requiring nothing more than an iPhone, iPad, or your favorite digital camera. Prizmo works like magic — it takes a snapshot of your document and transforms it into a digital format which can be used and worked on just like any ordinary file. Text recognized in more than 40 languages is pulled right from the pages and transferred to Prizmo thanks to an amazing Optical Character Recognition engine that can read every word. And that text is immediately editable, so you can lay out your scanned documents, add, and delete as you see fit. Plus, you’re not even tethered to your phone. Prizmo has apps on all of your apple devices, so you can keep your documents in sync with iCloud, or via other storage apps like Dropbox, Evernote, and Google Drive. Who needs a big, bulky scanner when you have Prizmo?

Prizmo for iOS devices is only $9.99, with the Mac version starting at $49.99. You can learn more about the Prizmo suite of software here, and try a demo of the Mac version with your portable camera from the Mac page.