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Igor Cheban’s iPhone Paintings→

Igor Cheban’s iPhone Paintings

Self-taught, 21 year-old artist Igor Cheban has posted on Reddit a gallery of his collection of iPhone paintings. Igor’s impressive work, available here, is the result of hours of work done primarily on an iPhone, with a few “paintings” created on the iPad (such as the “Wabbit” one in the link above). In the Reddit thread, which received hundreds of comments thanks to the exposure granted by Reddit’s homepage, Igor explains how he used award-winning iOS app Brushes to create the paintings (finger-painting with Brushes isn’t new to the Internet).

In particular, two comments stood out to me, as they epitomize the advantages and drawbacks of digital painting:

Very similar to digital painting on the computer. Although computer and real life painting allow you to control the flow of the lines by adding pressure which the phone is not capable of doing. So that’s something to consider. I do like the unlimited undos that digital painting offers so I would say that is the easier one.

when I’m working on a digital painting and I love the idea (for example “bird slayer”) then I feel just as excited as I would working on a physical painting… However, something wonderful about possessing a physical piece of artwork once finished. Unlike a digital file which could easily be reproduced, only one true original piece can exist.

Preservation of digital media, either in the form of text or images, is something I, and others, have been advocating for a long time. The topic resonates with iOS users: with apps that enable the most variegate kinds of creations, how do we ensure they can be stored and archived for future memory?

Make sure to check out the original Reddit thread and Igor’s profile on Instagram, where he uploaded more iPhone paintings and other sketches. He also posted a video on YouTube showing the techniques he uses with Brushes, mainly zooming in/out of the canvas to draw details and get the full picture. Brushes is Universal and free on the App Store.

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Sponsor: Orbicule

My thanks to Orbicule for sponsoring MacStories this week.

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Undercover is Find My Mac done right. After a very simple installation, Undercover will run in the background, constantly monitoring the location of your Mac. If your Mac gets stolen, in addition to tracking location Undercover will also snap mugshots through the computer’s built-in camera and capture keystrokes.

I personally use Undercover 5 because I like its web-based interface better than Apple’s Find My Mac. If you’re looking for a more powerful Find My Mac, I highly recommend Undercover 5.

Find out more about Undercover here.

Apple Announces 40 Billion App Store Downloads, Almost 20 Billion In 2012 Alone

With a press release published today, Apple announced the App Store has reached 40 billion unique App Store downloads (excluding re-downloads and updates), with almost 20 billion of them happened in 2012. Apple says the App Store has now 500 million accounts, with 2 billion downloads happened during December 2012. The App Store has also reached the number of 775,000 apps available for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, with seven billion dollars paid to developers so far.

It has been an incredible year for the iOS developer community,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “Developers have made over seven billion dollars on the App Store, and we continue to invest in providing them with the best ecosystem so they can create the most innovative apps in the world.

The press release includes additional facts, numbers, and quotes from third-party iOS developers who were successful in 2012. For instance, Temple Run, a game developed by “husband and wife team” at Imangi Studios, saw over 75 million downloads; development studios Backflip and Supercell “brought in over $100 million combined” for freemium games DragonVale and Cash of Clans; and Autodesk is now offering 20 apps to iOS users, with over 50 million downloads thanks to the App Store. You can read all the third-party experiences and numbers in Apple’s press release here.

The revolutionary App Store offers more than 775,000 apps to iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users in 155 countries around the world, with more than 300,000 native iPad apps available. App Store customers can choose from an incredible range of apps in 23 categories, including newspapers and magazines offered in Newsstand, games, business, news, sports, health & fitness and travel.

In the press release, Apple also stressed the importance of the tools they make available to developers to release and promote their apps on the App Store. Apple specifically mentioned “great ways to monetize apps” including in-app purchase, subscriptions, and advertising.

For context, Apple announced 10 billion App Store downloads in January 2011; 15 billion downloads in July 2011; and 25 billion downloads in March 2012. It took the App Store 1642 days to go from 0 downloads on July 10, 2008 to 40 billion today, with an average of 24 million downloads per day; however, it took 310 days to go from 25 billion downloads to 40 billion, with an average of 80 million downloads per day in the past 310 days.

To give a graphical visualization of the App Store’s growth, here’s a chart by Horace Dediu showing iTunes total downloads by medium (Horace also notes average revenue per app download is 25c).

And above, our charts showing the growth of the total number of apps, and the apps availability per platform (iPhone, iPad) months after the App Store’s launch, based on Apple’s official data (click images for full size).

Apple Announces Q1 2013 Conference Call for January 23

Apple’s first quarter earnings report and conference call will take place on January 23rd, 2013, according to an Investor Relations update on Apple’s website first noted by MacRumors. Apple will provide a live audio webcast of the event.

Apple plans to conduct a conference call to discuss financial results of its first fiscal quarter on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 at 2:00 p.m. PT / 5:00 p.m. ET.

For the fourth fiscal quarter of 2012 (which ended on September 29th), Apple posted revenue of $36 billion ($8.67 per diluted share), with 14 million iPads, 26.9 million iPhones and million 4.9 Macs sold. In Q4 2012, the company reported quarterly net profit of $8.2 billion, and the entire 2012 fiscal year generated $156.53 billion revenue for Apple.

The first fiscal quarter is traditionally the biggest quarter of the year for the company, as it directly follows the holiday season, including sales for Thanksgiving/Black Friday in the US and Christmas. Q1 2013 will provide a first real insight into sales of the iPad mini, and it will offer details on the iPhone 5’s performances following several international launches in the past few months (international sales accounted for 60 percent of Apple’s revenue in Q4 2012) and the fact that, when Q4 2012 ended on September 29th, the device had only been out for 8 days in 9 countries (where it was released on September 21st).

On December 3rd, the iPhone 5 was available in 47 countries; after Apple’s announcement, the availability of the device jumped to 102 countries by the end of December 2012, with an average of 1.04 countries added in 98 days since the first rollout on September 14th (when pre-orders were launched). In mid-December, Apple announced that first weekend sales of the iPhone 5 in China topped 2 million units.

As for the iPad, the WiFi version of the mini went on sale on November 2 in 34 countries alongside the fourth generation model. Various international rollouts followed the initial launch; Apple also started releasing the WiFi + Cellular version of the iPad mini in mid-November. On November 5th, Apple announced it had sold 3 million iPads (mini + 4th gen) in three days. For context, the 3rd generation iPad launched in 10 initial countries, and then rolled out to 25 more a week later; both WiFi and WiFi + Cellular versions of the 3rd generation iPad were available at launch.

In its guidance for the upcoming first fiscal quarter, Apple said they are expecting ”revenue of about $52 billion and diluted earnings per share of about $11.75”; it’s worth keeping in mind how Apple usually “lowballs” its guidance, subsequently “beating” analysts’ (and their own) expectations.

We will provide live updates from the conference call on our site’s homepage on January 23rd starting at 2 PM PT.

Apple Airs New “Dream” Commercial For “Do Not Disturb”

Apple has today aired its first new commercial of 2013: called “Dream” it features the Williams sisters playing table tennis with the main character. As with the previous iPhone 5 ads, the commercial features voiceover by Jeff Daniels. In the ad, Apple explains that with iOS’ Do Not Disturb your iPhone won’t ring (thus waking the character from his dream) unless it’s really important (Apple shows Do Not Disturb’s “allow from Favorites” setting).

Ever have a really cool dream? I’m having one right now. I don’t want to be disturbed; and I won’t, because before I went to sleep, I set this. Now my iPhone knows not to ring, unless it’s important. ‘Cause disturbing this would just be…wrong.

In a somewhat surprisingly unfortunate turn of events, several users reported today having issues with Do Not Disturb on the first day of the new year, with the feature not turning itself off automatically in the morning.

Apple has uploaded the commercial to its YouTube channel. You can check out the video below. Read more

Sponsor: Digiarty

My thanks to Digiarty for sponsoring MacStories this week.

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Digiarty’s best selling product is MacX DVD Ripper Pro. A backup and DVD ripping solution, MacX DVD Ripper Pro lets you rip your DVDs to a variety of file formats (MP4, H.264, MOV, FLV, MPEG, M4V, AVI, and QuickTime) with high quality video/audio, and for devices like Apple’s iPhones, iPads, Macs, Apple TV, or other gadgets such as Samsung and HTC devices. The software combines a DVD ripper and video converter with additional options to quickly edit videos and add subtitles.

Until January 7th, Digiarty is also running giveaways for MacXDVD and WinXDVD.

Find out more about MacX DVD Ripper Pro here.

Sponsor: SilverWiz

My thanks to SilverWiz for sponsoring MacStories this week with MoneyWiz.

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The new year is the perfect occasion to start fresh with your finances. MoneyWiz is a great personal finance app for Mac, iPhone, and iPad that allows you to keep track of your accounts and manage budgets, transactions, and due bills. With MoneyWiz you can import your bank statements in a variety of file formats, and, when you want to have an overview of your financial status, check out beautiful reports that will help you be aware of how you spend, plan better, and avoid penalties from unpaid bills.

MoneyWiz comes with built-in sync, so you’ll have the same data always available across your Mac and iOS devices.

Find out more about MoneyWiz here.

Apple Airs New iPad mini Commercial: I’ll Be Home

Just in time for Christmas, Apple has aired a new TV commercial for the iPad mini. Focused on FaceTime, the commercial shows a girl and her grandfather sharing a moment of holiday cheer with the girl playing and singing the classic hit “I’ll Be Home for Christmas”. As with the first iPad mini commercials, the device plays side-by-side with a bigger iPad, suggesting that, in spite of the smaller size, it’s just an iPad.

This isn’t the first holiday-themed commercial Apple aired this year, as just a month ago they launched “Turkey” to showcase the iPhone 5 and iOS’ Shared Photo Stream feature. A nice touch: there’s snow falling over the Apple logo at the end of the video.

You can watch the commercial below. Read more

Facebook Introduces Poke for Mobile→

Facebook Introduces Poke for Mobile


On Friday, December 21st, Facebook announced Poke for Mobile, a brand new application that makes it easy to say hello to friends. Where Facebook’s Messenger interfaces with the web giant’s chat app, and Facebook Camera makes it easy to upload groups of photos, Poke for Mobile offers an alternative, quick way to see who’s online and send quick greetings with pokes, messages, pictures, or video. The virtual pokes, perhaps cutely, can be set to last from one second to ten seconds. The app also lets you share where you are when you send a poke and you can see when your friends take screenshots. Poke for Mobile can be downloaded for free from the App Store.

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