Posts in news

Apple Announces New iTunes for OS X, iPod Touch 5th Generation, and a New iPod Nano

Apple hasn’t forgotten about the iPod or iTunes, announcing Wednesday a new iPod touch and a new iPod nano.

After the iPhone’s introduction, Tim Cook brought on Eddy Cue to talk about iTunes, introducing it as the #1 music store in the world, with over 200 million customers using iTunes, worldwide availability in 63 countries, and over 26 million songs available. “Two thirds of our downloads come from iOS,” Cue said on stage, while showing off brand new iTunes and App Store designs on the iPad, then on the iPhone 5. Launching September 19th, the visual refresh brings better performance when browsing through the store, and also includes the ability to preview music browsing and share store links with friends.

Apple also showcased an updated iTunes application for OS X, which features a new edge-to-edge design that looks similar to the iPad’s refreshed music app as of iOS 5. Album art flows across the display — clicking on an album expands album info as opening a folders does on iOS. iTunes also brings popovers that present a drop down of upcoming songs, and improved search results as you filter through music in your library. Cue also showed off a brand new mini-player design, which unlike previous designs, shows album artwork and gives the option to manage playlists and see upcoming songs as well.

More and updates past the break!

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iPhone 5: Our Complete Overview

Apple’s Phil Schiller took the stage today at Apple’s media event in San Francisco to officially unveil the iPhone 5, Apple’s major upgrade iPhone family. As widely rumored, the iPhone 5 features a taller display to visualize more content, a thinner profile, and a new metal backplate. While similar in the overall aesthetic to the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S, the changes made to the iPhone 5’s body construction, display, and glass design represent a major change from the industrial design first introduced in 2010. Read more

The Numbers and Facts From Apple’s September 12 Event

As usual with every Apple product announcement, keynotes start with “state of the business” introduction that, through various numbers and facts, reveals how the company is doing in several areas such as retail, the App Store, and hardware sales. At today’s media event in San Francisco, Apple CEO Tim Cook shared some interesting details on a variety of subjects.

  • The new Apple retail store in Barcelona is made of limestone from a local quarry.
  • Apple is opening a new retail store in the 13th country (Sweden) this Friday.
  • There are 380 Apple retail stores worldwide.
  • Customers’ response to Mountain Lion has been “fantastic”. Seven million copies have been downloaded to date.
  • 17 million iPads have been sold in the last quarter (April-June).
  • More iPads were sold than any other PC maker sold of their entire line-up.
  • 84 million iPads have been sold to date.
  • iPad’s share of the tablet market went up from 62% last year to 68% in spite of the competition.
  • iPad accounts for 91% of web traffic from tablets.
  • 94% of Fortune 500 are testing or deploying iPads.
  • The App Store has now over 700,000 apps. 250,000 are made exclusively for the iPad.
  • 90% of all apps are downloaded every month.
  • More than 100 apps are downloaded per customer on average.
  • 400 million iOS devices have been sold through June 2012.

For more coverage, check out our September 12 news hub and follow @macstoriesnet on Twitter.

Google Drive App with Document Editing Now Available

The official Google Drive app for iOS, available for free on the App Store, has been updated today to include support for editing documents directly on an iPhone or iPad. A major new feature of the app, users can now create new documents, edit them, format them, and share them with collaborators; the interface is reminiscent of Apple’s Pages word processor, with a formatting bar at the top to make text bold, italic, or underlined, insert lists, format paragraphs, and more.

In my tests, I have noticed the typing speed of the app’s cursor isn’t nearly as smooth as Apple’s Pages. Somehow, it feels like writing text inside a web view – there is a small delay between hitting a key and seeing a letter appear on screen – in spite Drive’s native nature. The aforementioned delay in typing is substantial enough to be noticed immediately and, I believe, could become an annoyance for many over time. However, it is quite impressive to see how Google managed to integrate live editing inside a document: if you’re collaborating with someone, you’ll see a green cursor appear on screen, typing words in real-time. You can also try this by opening the same document with your account on multiple devices and see what happens.

The formatting I applied on the iPhone and iPad correctly carried over to the web interface, which, obviously, still has more features, such as image uploading and easier link insertion. On iOS, you can’t paste images from, say, the Photos app onto Drive’s editing window; at least, however, Google implemented a font-picking menu with possibility to choose text and background color.

Also noteworthy in this update is the option to move files and delete them. Photos and videos can be uploaded directly from the iOS Camera roll (you can also create new ones with a Camera menu) and, if you use presentations, you should see richer animations and speaker notes (I haven’t been able to test this feature).

Overall, while not as fluid and responsive as Apple’s Pages, Drive’s document editing offers some solid online collaboration functionalities and decent formatting options. Personally, I don’t use Drive for file storage, so I was only interested in checking out the document editing aspect, and I didn’t came away disappointed by it. I wish that in a future update Google will figure out a way to integrate online editing while improving typing responsiveness, which isn’t that great right now.

You can get the app for free on the App Store. Read more

Apple Preps Yerba Buena For Next Week’s iPhone Event

Less than a week ahead of next week’s media event, rumored to be focused on the next-generation iPhone, Apple has started decorating the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts with its typical banners to indicate the upcoming event. Earlier this week, Apple sent invitations to the press for the event they will hold in San Francisco on September 12th, starting at 10 AM PST.

As usual, our friend @SteveStreza has managed to capture a series of photos of the work in progress at Yerba Buena.

Update: We’ve had a go at recreating the poster after it was discovered that the poster was created by stretching iPhone app icons vertically.

We are updating this post with more photos of Apple’s banners at the Yerba Buena Center past the break — these banners are typically of little indication of what the company will announce, but they’re always interesting to check out, if anything from a design standpoint.

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Adobe Photoshop Touch Now Retina Ready

Released in February, Photoshop Touch, Adobe’s mobile version of the popular desktop photo editing software, has been updated today to include Retina support on the third-genereation iPad.

When the new iPad came out in early March, early adopters lamented the fuzziness of graphics and images of the then just-released Photoshop Touch; the lack of high resolution mode was particularly concerning because, as the market leader when it comes to photo retouching and image creation, many thought Adobe would do better, shipping a version of its app ready for the Retina display (as many indie developers did).

Today’s version 1.3 brings Retina display support with updated graphics (though some menus, like the font-picking one, are still low-res), and support for high resolution images; the app now supports images up to 12 megapixels and allows you to work on them maintaining the highest quality settings. Admittedly, while the app could produce and edit on the iPad’s Retina display, working with surrounding fuzzy UI elements wasn’t the best experience, and it’s good to see Adobe (finally) improving the app with up-to-date features.

Alongside support for the Retina display, Photoshop Touch 1.3 brings two new effects, faster animations (the app does seem snappier in navigating content), integration with Photo Stream, and addiitonal minor fixes and improvements.

Adobe Photoshop Touch is available at $9.99 on the App Store. Check out our original review of the app.

Apple Confirms: Media Event on September 12

 

As first reported by The Loop’s Jim Dalrymple, Apple just sent out invitations to the press for a media event taking place on September 12 in San Francisco. The event will take place at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts at 10:00 AM.

Apple is widely rumored to be introducing the next-generation iPhone at the event. As it can be seen in the invitation’s graphic, the shadow of the number “12” is a actually a “5”, suggesting the new iPhone will, indeed, be called “iPhone 5”. In recent months, there has been a lot of speculation as to whether Apple would call the new device simply “the new iPhone” (following “the new iPad” earlier this year), although some suggested “iPhone 5” would make more sense in terms of marketing considering the previous 4/4S monickers. However, others noted that, because the new iPhone would be the sixth generation model, the “iPhone 6” name would be more appropriate.

Obviously, the invite’s image is only a hint of a possible product name, but a strong one nevertheless. If previous invites are of any indication (see “let’s talk” as related to Siri last year), there’s a good chance the device will be called “iPhone 5”.

Lately, a lot of purportedly “leaked” parts of the new device have also pointed to a major redesign featuring a taller screen, thinner and lighter design, new speaker and dock connector, and more powerful A6 processor. iMore was first to report weeks ago about the future redesigned dock connector and September event. According to the website, the new iPhone should go on sale on September 21.

The next major version of iOS, iOS 6, is also currently being tested by developers, and it’s expected to become publicly available a few days before the launch of the next iPhone.

Rovio Announces New “Bad Piggies” Game To Launch This Month

Finnish videogame maker Rovio has announced “Bad Piggies”, a spin-off of the popular Angry Birds franchise that will let users play from the pigs’ perspective. Titled “Bad Piggies” and set to launch later this month, the game will shift the focus from the birds – typically, the main characters – to the pigs. It is unclear how this will translate in terms of game mechanics, but Rovio promises “never-before-seen gameplay” without slingshots, Angry Birds’ tools to complete levels and clear them of pigs, the enemies.

There’s a lot of empathy towards the lovable enemies from the Angry Birds games, and we’ve been constantly asked: what about the pigs’ side of the story?” said Mikael Hed, CEO of Rovio. “Bad Piggies gives you the chance to play as the second-most-loved characters in the Angry Birds universe, and explore this rich world through their green eyes.

After the modest success of Amazing Alex – a new IP from Rovio based on the acquisition of a game previously called “Casey’s Contraptions” – Rovio kept on releasing updates to Angry Birds, adding new levels and options for free. Earlier this year, Rovio launched a new version of Angry Birds called “Space”, which was downloaded over 100 million times in just 76 days. Also earlier this year, back in May, Rovio announced the billionth download for the Angry Birds franchise, and reported revenue of over $100 million for the fiscal year 2011.

As a side note, an Angry Birds version featuring the pigs’ point of view was rumored all the way back in November 2010.

Bad Piggies will launch on Thursday, September 27, on iOS, Mac, and Android. A teaser website is available here.

August 2012 In Review

August has been the lull between July’s Mountain Lion release and September’s inevitable iPhone announcement. But that’s not to say it was a quiet month - it certainly wasn’t. On the news front, we saw Apple and Amazon reacting to Mat Honan’s ‘epic hacking’, the first Mountain Lion update, internal promotions at Apple and of course - the verdict in the Apple v. Samsung trial. August also saw big Pixelmator, Things, Instagram, Drafts and Buzz Contacts app updates amongst a bunch of other updates and new release apps. Finally, in the stories department, we wrote up a bunch of how-to’s and I talked about the rise of third party services and fall of Google in iOS. Be sure to stay tuned this September, it’s going to be a big month.

You can review past ‘Month In Review’ posts here.

The Highlights

 

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