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Agenda 3.0: Fast Event Creation, Custom Repeats and More

Agenda, by Savvy Apps, is a fantastic and minimal calendar replacement for iOS (universal) with many built-in options. We’ve covered Agenda a few times already but the new 3.0 update adds some excellent new features and updates.

The first, and most important update is a custom event creation screen that’s much faster than the default iOS one. It has a simplified layout that lets you access event elements without going into second and third screens. This means you only need to tap once to access the event title, start & end time, alerts, location, and notes. You can swipe between calendar months and the animation is very slick!  The dots beneath the calendar identify what month you are in - past, present or future. Agenda now imports your contacts from iOS so once an event is created, you can attach them by tapping the calendar icon and choosing what contacts you want to add to your event for things such as text, email, calls, or status taps.

Another great feature that Agenda now has is a set of customizable repeat options. While on the event creation screen, tap the icon next to the repeat section to choose dates for ending repeating events, create repeating events for specific days or dates of the month, and much more.

Defaults, defaults, defaults! I wish more apps had a larger set of defaults — it makes data entry much easier if there is a predefined set of options. You can now pick defaults for calendar, event alert sounds, view, duration, alert, and all day alert time via Agenda’s built-in Settings > Defaults menu.

iPad users also get a few new options: swiping right or left will now change views, year and week view now move up or down instead of right or left and you can now change settings to a smaller modal view.

To read the complete release notes for Agenda 3.0, Savvy Apps has a listing for your viewing pleasure. They also have a great little Tips & Tricks section on the Agenda page to help you enter events even faster. If you don’t like the new “Fast Event Creation” screen you can always toggle back to the native iOS event creation from Agenda’s settings, but the new way is so much easier and more fun!

Agenda 3.0 is a great upgrade to a great product — anytime you can streamline manual data entry into one screen gets a big thumbs up from me. The Tips & Tricks are worth 2 minutes of your time to read so that you can fully understand the new “Fast Event Creation” screen. Agenda is a universal app and available in the App Store for 99¢, while existing users get the 3.0 update for free.

ProductiveMacs Bundle: 8 Great Mac Apps for $39

Bundle season for the Mac is in full effect, but this one isn’t about games. This bundle throws together some really powerful utilities that will help you get work done such as RapidWeaver, DEVONthink, Printopia, MailTags, HoudahSpot, Trickster (brand new, read our review) MacJournal and Voila. If you purchased all 8 of these productive goodies separately they would cost $290 but this bundle is priced at the super-low total of $39.  The ProductiveMacs bundle, organized via Apparent Software, are hosting a bundle that features a fine collection of seriously powerful software for your Mac.

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Comic Zeal Updates with Retina Graphics on the iPad→

Comic Zeal Updates with Retina Graphics on the iPad

From the App Store:

Hi all, do we have retina for you! CZ 5 looks wonderful with retina graphics on the new iPad. Hope you all enjoy. Also added auto sorting and the ability to put comics in the home page. Turn both of those on if you’re after the ‘ol CZ 4 experience.

- Added option to auto-sort a series when new comics are added to it on import.
- Added option to auto-sort the home page after an import.
- Retina graphics throughout.
- Comic Zeal will generate high resolution thumbnails when the device has a retina display.
- Comic Zeal will now try harder to find thumbnails to represent a series if there are dividers present in the series.
- Comics downloaded from bitolithic are no longer backed up.
- The ‘new comics are western/manga’ is infinitely more reliable.

I don’t read too many comics, but when I do, I always use Comic Zeal. I’m very happy to see this much awaited update finally happen for the 3rd generation iPad — comics have always showed up fine but the pixelated interface was a letdown when we last checked out a group of comic apps in May. Bitolithic’s blog post discussed the update on May 3rd in anticipation for its eventual release — Comic Zeal 5.1.4 was finally made available on June 3rd. Comic Zeal is available on the App Store for $4.99.

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May 2012 In Review

May was a huge month for new apps and app updates with everything from Spotify for iPad, Diet Coda and TouchArcade launching to Flipboard, Sparrow and Tweetbot seeing sweet updates - and that’s only scratching the surface, there was a lot more. As for news, we saw another Siri ad (this time with John Malkovich), confirmation of the Mac App Store sandboxing deadline of June 1st, WWDC Keynote announcement and Rovio had two big pieces of news. Finally, we had some great stories go up in May and Lukas keeps writing awesome app reviews in his Inspiring UIs series. So without further ado, jump the break and enjoy the recap of May and sorry we’re a few days late this month!

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Airlines Increasing Fuel Efficiency By Adopting The iPad As An Entertainment Device→

Airlines Increasing Fuel Efficiency By Adopting The iPad As An Entertainment Device

Bloomberg reports today that startup airline Scoot Pte (their maiden flight is today) will save fuel and have increased profits by deploying the iPad as the passenger entertainment device. By cutting out old entertainment systems weighing more than two tons, they’ve saved fuel while still flying older airplanes and even expanding traditional seating capacity by 40 per cent. Increasing profit, the post-PC way.

The tablets helped the carrier cut 7 percent off the weight of planes obtained from parent Singapore Airlines Ltd. (SIA) even after a 40 percent increase in seating, Chief Executive Officer Campbell Wilson said. The savings will help Scoot, which makes its maiden flight today, cope with fuel prices that have jumped about 36 percent in two years.

Scoot Pte will rent the iPads for $17 a flight to economy-class passengers and offering them for free to those in business class. It follows moves by other airlines such as Jetstar, AirAsia and Qantas which have deployed the iPad in trials and small test runs since late last year.

Cutting costs and finding new sources of revenue will be key for Singapore-based Scoot as it seeks to make a profit flying older planes than other low-cost carriers and selling tickets as cheap as S$158 one-way to Sydney, a flight of more than seven hours. Singapore Air formed Scoot after budget operators led by Jetstar and AirAsia Bhd. won 26 percent of the city’s air-travel market.

By reducing fuel costs, parent company Singapore Airlines hopes that it can turn over a new leaf with Scoot after it tumbled 28 percent this year, exceeding the 14 percent decline for the Straits Times Index. It’s really crazy to think that something like the iPad can have such a huge impact on fuel efficiency of airplanes - today’s story is on top of  the existing trend of airlines replacing flight manuals with iPads that Tim Cook gladly shared earlier this year.

Scoot plans to increase its fleet to as many as 14 777s by the middle of the decade. The carrier will be able to pare maintenance costs by working with its parent, Wilson said.

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Updated Editor’s Choice Section Hand Picks Best of the Best

Last week’s App Store update introduced Editor’s Choice banners on the iOS and Mac App Stores that highlighted that week’s best apps. In turn, App of the Week became Apple’s way of promoting cherry picked apps while offering them for free (similar to app deals found on Amazon’s App Store for the Kindle Fire). This week, Apple has subsequently introduced a rebranded “App of the Week” as the Editor’s Choice section in the iOS App Store, showcasing both iPhone and iPad apps. The Editor’s Choice section of the App Store aims to showcase the highest quality and the most innovative apps on their store, with the showcase being divided into new and previous picks. Apple recommends that you check back often to check for new applications.

The Editor’s Choice section for the iPad can be found here, while the Editor’s Choice section for the iPhone can be found here.

The Humble Indie Bundle V

Humble Indie Bundle V features five incredible, best-selling games plus their soundtracks (in both FLAC and MP3 formats). ”Experience the fear and paranoia of Amnesia: The Dark Descent; the intensity and impact of LIMBO; the zany characters of Psychonauts; the future-retro, audiovisual concoction of Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP; and, for customers who pay more than the average price, the exquisitely crafted action-RPG, Bastion.” If you bought these games separately, it would cost around $110, but they are letting you set the price. Pay a $1 or more and you can optionally get a key to redeem the games on Steam (for Mac and Windows). The games work great on a Mac but if you need to check system requirements, they are here.

The Humble Indie Bundle V includes lots of great titles and their accompanied soundtracks, giving you plenty of unique Indie gaming to keep you out of the summer heat. You can find links to all the great games below.

There’s fourteen days left to donate, so you have plenty of time to cash in your paycheck and donate to a worthy cause; donate to the developers, the Child’s Play Charity, or the Electronic Frontier Foundation. If you like this deal, Humble Bundle is also accepting tips. They have already sold over 26,000 copies in the first 30 minutes! Be sure to check out The Humble Indie Bundle V official launch video after the break and get amped up!

Note: The Mac edition of S:S&S EP will also be popping up on Steam sometime today, plus it’ll show up on the Mac App Store before the “summer solstice”.

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Apple To Acquire Italian Digital Music Editing Company Redmatica

As noted by Italian website Fanpage [Google Translation] and reported by TechCrunch, Apple has filed documentations with Italian authorities to acquire Italian company Redmatica. Based in Correggio, Italy, Redmatica specializes in “digital audio workstation” software – notably, the company is well known for Mac audio editing and mixing editors such as KeyMap Pro, AutoSampler, and ProManager. Based on Apple technologies such as CoreAnimation, Redmatica’s software integrates with popular desktop editors and tools such as Logic, Reason, MainStage, and even GarageBand for iPad.

The acquisition of “DAW” (Digital Audio Workstation) assets by Redmatica has been reported by Italian regulator AGCOM in an official document available here. The document notes how Redmatica’s worldwide revenue in 2011 has been under €1 million, with, surprisingly, no revenue (“fatturato”) coming from Italy. Apple, on the other hand, reported, according to the document, approximately €77,6 billion revenue worldwide in the fiscal year 2011 (2010/2011 as noted in the document), €19.9 billion in the European Union, and “over €1 billion” in Italy alone.

As for the DAW software, the AGCOM filing notes how Redmatica holds a share less than 1%, while Apple holds around 10/15% among “several and qualified competitors”. The document explains how DAW software may fall under the category of “business software”, as DAW applications allow for recording, editing, mixing, and playback of digital music, and are typically used by sound professionals, but also “prosumers” (“expert amateur users” in the document), musicians, and DJs.

The AGCOM document doesn’t say Apple has acquired Redmatica. Rather, provided a description of both companies, the nature of the acquisition, and the aforementioned numbers and stats, the filing goes on to note how Apple isn’t a big player in the area of DAW software, and thus the acquisition should be safe for competition. In the document, in fact, Italian law n. 287/90 (art. 16, comma 4) is mentioned as a possible factor that could prevent Apple from acquiring the company. Specifically, law n. 287/90 (art. 16, comma 4) notes how, in case of competitive disadvantages (explained in art. 6), authorities may begin an investigation (detailed in art. 14) for a proposed acquisition or merger (“operazione di concentrazione”).

The AGCOM document ends noting how AGCOM deliberated an investigation won’t be necessary; AGCOM’s conclusions have been forwarded to Apple, Redmatica, and the Italian Minister of Economic Development of Infrastructure and Transport. It is safe to assume that, considering AGCOM’s position, the acquisition will be given the final go-ahead by Italian authorities soon. It is obviously unclear how much Apple is willing to spend to acquire Redmatica’s assets, or how Apple plans to integrate its software in its existing suite of digital audio applications.

We have reached both Apple and Redmatica for comment, and we’ll update this story with more details when available.

Tim Cook at D10 [Updated with Highlights and Storify Recap]

A dapper Tim Cook will be sitting down with Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher this evening in Racho Palos Verdes, California, where AllThingsDigital’s D10 Conference will be held for the next three days as tech industry heavyweights are invited to speak and demo new products. Since last August, Tim Cook has continued to drive Apple’s success with new product launches of the iPhone 4S and the iPad 3. Apple has given stock dividends, joined the Fair Labor Association, and has reported its best quarter ever since Cook was promoted to CEO. We expect most of tonight’s interview to focus on his tenure at Apple, what’s in the company’s future, and how Cook views the tech industry and the pace of innovation that’s currently happening.

All Things Digital has made available an iPhone/Android app so readers can stay updated on upcoming events and interviews during the conference. Livestreams will be made available for certain speakers, and Twitter users can follow the conversation around D10 through the hashtag #atd10. A livestream for Tim Cook’s talk will not be available, but there should be a recorded session available by Wednesday.

As the conversation with Tim Cook gets underway, we’ll be highlighting some of the key takeaways and sharing thoughts and opinions from around the web that occur as a result of what Tim Cook says or doesn’t say. We’re looking forward to the interview, and hope you’ll tune in with us at 9:00 EST as we quietly follow along with the live transcripts.

Update 9:23: Tim Cook is on stage! We’ll be posting highlights past the break.

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