Posts in news

Mozilla Releases Firefox 5.0 Beta

A few days later than originally expected, Mozilla updated the beta channel earlier today to include the first public beta of the next major version of Firefox, dubbed Firefox 5.0. Available for Mac, Windows and Linux PCs, the new Firefox comes with performance and stability enhancements, as well as support for new CSS animation standards. A detailed list of changes is provided in the Beta channel release notes:

  • Added support for CSS animations
  • Added support for switching Firefox development channels
  • The Do-Not-Track header preference has been moved to increase discoverability
  • Improved canvas, JavaScript, memory, and networking performance
  • Improved standards support for HTML5, XHR, MathML, SMIL, and canvas
  • Improved spell checking for some locales
  • Improved desktop environment integration for Linux users

More importantly, the new beta allows users to quickly switch between Aurora, Beta and Stable channels from the About menu of Firefox to “test features at various levels of development, quality and polish.” No visible interface changes made their way into the 5.0 beta, though from a first series of tests the speed and memory optimizations when dealing with dozens of open tabs seem remarkable. Aurora, the new release channel launched by Mozilla a few weeks ago, aims at following the path traced by Google Chrome with the Canary builds in offering users a way to get access to early builds a step above the so-called “nightly” builds. Today’s beta release marks the debut of Firefox 5. in the public beta channel.

Firefox 5.0 beta can be downloaded here. Read more

Apple Investigating Explosion at Foxconn iPad Factory

An explosion in a Foxconn facility in Chengdu, China, that killed 2 and injured at least 16 earlier today is currently under investigation from Apple and Foxconn, as well as local officials. The blast, reported by several news outlets this afternoon, took place in the factory where Foxconn makes iPads for Apple, the WSJ said. In Fried at All Things Digital posted an official statement from an Apple spokesperson:

We are deeply saddened by the tragedy at Foxconn’s plant in Chengdu, and our hearts go out to the victims and their families,” Apple said in a statement provided to All Things D. “We are working closely with Foxconn to understand what caused this terrible event.

Whilst speculation is running wild as to whether the damages to the facility will affect the iPad’s production chain, our thoughts and prayers go the victims of this terrible tragedy.

Intel Working On New ULV Sandy Bridge Processors Apple Could Use in MacBook Airs

CPU World reports (via MacRumors) that Intel is working on a series of new Core i5 and Core i7 ULV (ultra-low voltage) processors based on the Sandy Bridge architecture which, offering improved speed and graphics performances over the previous-gen Arrandale CPUs, might be a suitable choice for Apple in the next generation of MacBook Air models. The three new processors, Core i5-2557M, Core i7-2637M and Core i7-2677M, increase clock speed from 1.4 GHz and 1.6 GHz to 1.7 GHz and 1.8 GHz, with turbo boost frequencies set at 2.8 GHz and 2.9 GHz. With increased speeds, performances and the same 17 Watt thermal envelope, the new CPUs might as well end up being used by Apple in the MacBook Airs rumored to receive a Sandy Bridge and Thunderbolt update in June or July.

Two forthcoming Core i7 ULV dual-core processors, i7-2637M and i7-2677M, have 1.7 and 1.8 GHz base, and 2.8 GHz and 2.9 GHz Turbo Boost frequencies. This is 200 MHz higher than the frequencies of their predecessors, Core i7-2617M and i7-2657M. Default clock rate of the HD 3000 graphics on new chips stays the same, 350 MHz, although the maximum turbo frequency is increased to 1.2 GHz. The microprocessors boast 4 MB level 3 cache, and support HyperThreading and Vpro technologies. It is interesting to note that, despite of having lower processor number, the Intel i7-2637M SKU will be faster than the i7-2657M.

Low power consumption and speed are obviously factors Apple considers when selecting the processor to implement in thin and lightweight machines like the MacBook Airs. Whilst no release date has been announced by Intel yet, Apple usually gets components from Intel earlier than other companies, leading to speculation that the upcoming Air refresh may include the update Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs. Several reports in the past months indicated was working on a new version of the MBA line, last updated in October 2010, featuring Thunderbolt connectivity and faster processors following recent hardware changes to the MacBook Pros and iMacs.

Facebook for iPhone Creator Tries to Improve Scrolling in iOS Web Apps

Joe Hewitt, creator and former developer of the Facebook app for iPhone, announced earlier this month his intention to leave the company to focus on personal projects to build tools for designers, programmers, and writers. The first result of his renewed development efforts is Scrollability, ”a single script” that has no ”external dependencies” and it’s aimed at dramatically improving scrolling on mobile web applications. One of the biggest problems of web apps, in fact, when compared to native iOS applications, is that web apps usually suffer from bad scrolling performances and an overall feeling of “slowness” that most App Store apps don’t have because of the tools and frameworks they were written with.

On the official project’s page, Hewitt explains Scrollability works best on the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and iPad. Once implemented on a webpage (by adding a few “CSS classes to scrollable elements”), the effects of Scrollability can be immediately noticed thanks to a general snappier and more responsive scrolling than regular iOS web apps. For now there’s only a Table View demo out, and you can try it by heading over this link with your iOS device.

Hewitt also details some of the changes that are being worked on:

Bugs Being Worked On

  • Increase momentum as you flick up or down several times
  • When releasing finger slowly, make sure scrolling is completely stopped
  • Lots of other hard to describe discrepancies with native scrolling…

Features Planned

  • Scroll to the top when status bar is tapped
  • Option to snap to page boundaries
  • Sticky table headers
  • Photo viewer with zooming

Scrollability is available on GitHub, and you can follow Hewitt’s Twitter account to stay updated with the latest changes and modifications to the script. With the improvements introduced in Mobile Safari after the iOS 4.3 software update, there’s a huge opportunity for web developers to write apps for iPhones and iPads that don’t require Apple’s approval; Joe Hewitt’s project may become obsolete as soon as next month when Apple previews iOS 5, but it’s still worth checking it out now and testing it on mobile web pages. [via ReadWriteWeb]

Weather HD for Mac Brings Beautiful Forecasts to the Desktop

Weather HD is a popular weather application for iPhone and iPad by development studio vimov which, unlike most weather tools that display current conditions and weekly forecasts through icons and data sets on screen, comes with a selection of beautifully animated videos that depict the weather conditions of your location. Weather HD animates a cloudy and dark sky when a thunderstorm is coming, and lets you view a green field with grass moving in front of you in case of a windy but sunny summer day. If you’ve tried the iPad app last year, you know what to expect – a very few numbers, lots of video and animations.

The Mac version of Weather HD, released today, takes where the iOS counterparts left off to offer even more videos, and bigger ones with new scenarios and conditions. The app is a 225 MB download for a reason: it’s full of video content that will be displayed on your Mac’s screen as soon as you enter your ZIP code or city name. In the Mac app, though, there’s more than the iPad version. You can set up notifications to be alerted when temperature drops below a certain amount of degrees, and quickly check out the hourly forecasts from an icon in the menubar. You can enter multiple locations, as well as choose to run the app in windowed or fullscreen mode. In the main screen, animated forecasts run on the right panel, and a series of tabs in the upper left hand corner get you access to a slew of other functionalities. You can check out severe conditions and moon phases in-app, or switch to the Map view and apply different layers on your location like clouds, temperature, humidity and wind. When you’re done, the additional panel slides back to reveal video forecasts in their full glory again.

Weather HD has never been an app for weather professionals and geeks, but the Mac app packs more features than its iOS siblings. Videos look good, and whether or not the whole concept can become annoying after a few days of usage it’s totally up to you. But at $3.99, I think vimov is off to another success in the App Store. Read more

Mac App Store Developer Reports 1 Million Downloads

According to Industry Gamers, development studio EnsenaSoft has announced today they’re first developer to reach 1 million app downloads in the Mac App Store. Since arriving on the Mac App Store months ago, EnsenaSoft has released 31 educational and puzzle games / apps for the Mac, totaling 7,000 downloads on average each day.

We have incredible talent within our organization. The applications that they developed have become so popular, so quickly, with Mac consumers,” said Blanca Valencia, President of EnsenaSoft.  “The Mac App Store has allowed us to compete with much larger developers and reach out to a much broader audience than we could have ever imagined. Through the store, Mac users throughout the world can now learn from, and experience, our tremendous applications first hand.

EnsenaSoft has both free and paid apps in the Mac App Store, and the large selection of software surely helped the developers achieve the important milestone. It still surprising however, that the announcement of 1 million downloads is coming from a relatively unknown name like EnsenaSoft, rather than more popular devs like Rovio (developers of Angry Birds) or Pixelmator, a popular image editor for OS X that generated $1 million in revenue in the first 20 days of Mac App Store availability. EnsenaSoft’s success could be a sign detailing the nature of the Mac App Store, which with recent updates to the homepage from Apple has proved to be the perfect platformfor games and kids-oriented products.

Soon after the launch of the Mac App Store on January 6, other stories of success confirmed the theory that a unified app marketplace for the Mac was something users had been looking forward to. Digital organizer Evernote reported 40,000 new Mac users in the first days of 2011, and the developer of Compartments, another Mac app, said he went from 7 sales a day to 1,500. Apple itself announced 1 million app downloads during the first day of Mac App Store. [via Macgasm]

Apple Also Negotiating with Music Publishers for Cloud Service

Following last night’s report on Apple signing a deal with the third music label, Sony, over the launch of the rumored iTunes cloud service after inking similar agreements with EMI and Warner Music Group, Peter Kafka at All Things Digital reports negotiations won’t be over once Apple also signs Universal, the biggest music label in the United States; whilst Apple is clearly in advantage when compared to Google and Amazon thanks to its music deals, the company still has to finalize agreements with music publishers, which own different rights on songs and albums than labels. As Kafka explains, publishers are different entities, usually shared within the same label but still residing in separate buildings, that own rights to the songs’ compositions, as opposed to the labels who own rights to the recordings. Once music is distributed either physically or online, both get paid with different fees and terms; once example is the Beatles music catalogue, with recordings owned by EMI and compositions by publisher Sony/ATV.

Kafka claims Apple simply started negotiating with the labels first, and deals with publishers are currently being worked on ahead of a rumored WWDC launch.

While Apple came to terms with Warner Music and EMI Music weeks ago, and has now struck a deal with Sony Music, industry sources tell me the company doesn’t have agreements with labels’ associated publishing companies — Warner/Chappell, EMI Music Publishing and Sony/ATV. The deal Apple is about to sign with Universal, also won’t include publishing, I’m told.

Music industry sources I talk to think Apple wants to launch, or at least announce, the cloud service at its developers’ conference in early June. And if the hang-up is truly just about money, then that still gives dealmakers time to hammer things out. But remember that this is the music business, and simple things always take longer than they should.

As reported several times in the past few weeks, Apple’s upcoming cloud-based music service is rumored to offer both uploads of a user’s music collection and access to songs not previously purchased, but available for streaming through a subscription system.

Google Completely Revamps Maps on Mobile Browsers

Announced a few minutes ago on the official Google Mobile Blog, the Maps web app for iOS and Android devices has gone under a major update that enables new features and menus when viewed on mobile browsers. As Google reports, 40% of Maps usage happens on mobile browsers, and that’s why the company decided to update the maps.google.com website to offer a more consistent experience across smartphones and tablets. The changes, however, are exclusive to the web app and we can’t see anything new on the native Maps app for iOS, which uses Google’s backend but is developed by Apple.

The new Maps website displays a bar on top to get your current location, enable and disable layers like satellite, labels, traffic and points of interest, and another button to get directions to a specific location or learn more about places that support additional information and photos (like restaurants). Provided you give Safari access to your location, you can easily get directions as you would on a desktop browser, sign out of your Google account and access the “My Maps” interface from Google.

Now, when you visit maps.google.com on your phone or tablet’s browser and opt-in to share your location, you can use many of the same Google Maps features you’re used to from the desktop.

The new features include:

  • See your current location
  • Search for what’s nearby with suggest and auto complete
  • Have clickable icons of popular businesses and transit stations
  • Get driving, transit, biking, and walking directions
  • Turn on satellite, transit, traffic, biking, and other layers
  • View Place pages with photos, ratings, hours, and more
  • When signed into your Google account, access your starred locations and My Maps

You can try new Maps mobile website by heading over to maps.google.com on your iOS or Android device. Check out more screenshots below. Read more

China Telecom Working with Apple To Get CDMA iPhone

Reuters reports China Telecom, the smallest mobile operator in the country with 17.84 million 3G subscribers as of April 2011, is “in touch” with Apple to get the CDMA version of the iPhone, currently only sold by Verizon Wireless in the United States.

China Telecom Corp Ltd, the smallest of the country’s three wireless carriers, has contacted Apple Inc to introduce the popular iPhone based on CDMA (code division multiple access) technology, Chairman Wang Xiaochu said on Friday.

“We’re not denying that we’re in touch with iPhone (Apple), but I cannot comment on the progress,” Wang told reporters after a shareholders’ meeting.

As the exclusive agreement between Apple and China Unicom, the largest carrier in China, expires later this year, China Telecom is looking forward to revamp its CDMA infrastructure to be able to offer the CDMA iPhone to its subscribers. No additional details have been provided by Reuters in the report, though a rumor posted back in January suggested Apple was on track to ship the CDMA iPhone 4 to China, Japan and Korea during 2011, with international carriers getting a version of the device produced by Pegatron, with Foxconn remaining the sole supplier for the CDMA iPhone to Verizon Wireless in the US. The release of the CDMA iPhone in more countries would certainly help Apple address more market segments and subscriber bases.