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Finally: Previous Purchases Coming To iOS App Store

Apple is updating its iOS App Store tonight. After search filters, Apple added a much requested feature: apps already purchased get an “Install” button instead of the usual “Buy” one. Why is this a big deal? Because having the “Buy” button was confusing, as it wasn’t easy to remember which apps you had already bought. Now, if you’re trying to install an app you have already bought one, it’s much easier.

Sure, it’s not as useful as the “Purchases” tab in the Mac App Store (which lets you see all your app purchase history at once), but we think this is a great (and much needed) first step nonetheless. The new feature is only enabled on the iPad App Store right now, but it shouldn’t be a problem for Apple to add it to the iPhone and iPod touch as well (unlike filters, which require some screen space).

Thanks, App Store team.

Developers: You Can Now Generate Promo Codes for Mac Apps

An update in iTunes Connect shows that developers can now generate promo codes for apps sold in the Mac App Store:

You can now generate promo codes for your Mac apps in iTunes Connect. These promo codes can be redeemed in any Mac App Store worldwide. For each version of your app, you can request up to 50 promo codes.

Up until today, Apple didn’t allow developers to generate promo codes for Mac apps. The also-updated iTunes Connect Developer guide further explains:

Promo codes can now be generated for Mac OS X apps and redeemed through any Mac App Store internationally.

Read more

The Daily Is Heading To The United Kingdom

The Daily Twitter

The Daily Twitter

The Daily (@Daily) tweeted the folks over at the Guardian that they’ll soon be bringing The Daily to the United Kingdom. It’s not known what The Daily would comprise, but we assume our friends across the pond would be happy not to have the American’s “snowpocalypse” on the front page. And just so we’re clear, get schooled on the difference between the United Kingdom, England, and Great Britain thanks to fantastic video.

[The Daily UK via RazorianFly, UK Explained via @jenna, @jazer]

A Great Simplenote Update: Dropbox Integration and Lists

Over the past few weeks I’ve been testing a new version of Simplenote, which just went live in the App Store. The new Simplenote, which reaches version 3.1, is a huge update that adds many requested features and a great surprise from the developers: the app now comes with native Dropbox support, configurable in the Settings. Simplenote can now sync text files back to a “Simplenote” folder in your Dropbox account (you can rename it), and syncing sessions happen every several minutes, but can be triggered manually. Dropbox integration is a feature exclusive to the Premium subscription, which can be purchased for $12 a year. In my tests, Dropbox syncing has been very reliable and now allows me to natively integrate Simplenote with a plethora of other iOS and Mac word processors that support Dropbox. Read more

Apple Releases Xcode 4 GM

Apple just released a GM seed of Xcode 4. It’s available now in the iOS and Mac dev centers. The release of the GM seed means the final version of Xcode 4 is nearing completion and should be available soon.

Xcode 4 is a major new version of Apple’s development suite which sports lots of new features and a new single-windowed UI. The first version of Xcode 4 preview was released during the WWDC in June, the second build was seeded in late July, Preview 3 was made available on September 2, Preview 4 was released in October. The latest developer seed, preview 6, was released on January 10.

From the release notes:

Xcode 4 GM seed can now be used to submit iOS and Mac apps to the App Store.

Xcode 4 GM seed includes the iOS SDK 4.2 and Mac OS X SDK 10.6.

The ReadMe file of the GM seed also comes with an interesting notice:

Xcode 4 requires an Intel-based Mac running Mac OS X 10.7 Lion or later.

Which we’re sure is just a mistake on the release notes.

Update: it appears that Apple has pulled the GM seed from the developer center, which shows Preview 6 again. Perhaps a bug was found at the last minute, so we guess it should be back shortly.

Update #2: the GM seed is available again in the Dev Center. The OS X 10.7 mention has been removed:

Xcode 4 requires an Intel-based Mac running Mac OS X 10.6.6 or later. See the installation notes below for additional information.

Don’t Have an iPad? Want All The Daily Articles In One Place? Here You Go

The Daily is a cool experiment, although the app needs some serious optimizations in our opinion. Still, the content seems to be pretty nice, and it’s indeed being updated “daily” with new articles, covers and videos. As you may have noticed, most of the articles from The Daily app are also shared by News Corp’s team on the web, but there’s no index for all these links. Either you follow @thedaily on Twitter to read every single link, or you can’t just head over the website and browse a complete archive of stories. The availability of backlog issues was a also a subject discussed by News Corp and journalists at the official announcement of the app yesterday and it looks like, at least for now, The Daily has no plans to create a public archive of all their stories on the web.

But, there is a solution. The unofficial “The Daily: Indexed” archive by Andy Baio provides a single place to find all the articles from The Daily that have already been shared on the web. The blog aggregates all the links, organizes them by day and even offers a preview of each day’s cover. It’s an interesting (and useful) experiment that also plays very well with Instapaper and Read It Later, if you like the content of The Daily but don’t want to download the app.

Check out The Daily Indexed here. [via Daring Fireball]

iAds Twice as Effective as TV Says Apple, Campbell’s

A Nielsen study shows iPhone users are paying attention, while TV views – eh, not so much. iAds started around 7 months ago on our iDevices and now there are effectiveness studies showing up, this one from Campbell’s (the soup maker).

People exposed to one of Campbell’s iAds were more than twice as likely to recall it than those who had seen a Campbell’s TV ad. This five-week Nielsen study showed that consumers who saw an iAd remembered Campbell’s brand five times more often than TV ad respondents and the ad’s  message three times more often. iAd respondents were four times as likely to to purchase Campbell’s than the TV viewers. Users also liked the ad five times more than the TV commercial. Read more

Rumor: Apple Planning iPad 2 & iOS 4.3 Event Next Week

According to website MacNotes.de, which previously reported the next-generation iPad is set to come out in the first weeks of April, Apple is planning a media event next week to discuss the new features in iOS 4.3 and provide a preview of the iPad 2.

A release date between 2nd and 9th April seems quite likely, sources - not only ours - pointed to a release in early April. The only question is: When will the iPad 2 be presented? One manufacturer of iPad accessoires now told us Apple is planning on holding an event next week.

Our guess is Apple will present the iPad 2 as a “One more thing” during a special iOS 4.3 developer event next week. iOS 4.3 is still a beta, Apple released the third beta on Tuesday. It still contains critical bugs, but might be released soon as soon as all the bugs are fixed.

The rumor follows a series of reports surfaced last night that hint at the release of iOS 4.3 in two weeks. iOS 4.3 is currently being tested with developers and has reached the beta 3 status, which may lead to a release of a GM seed next week. If the rumors are to be believed, in two weeks (and after the release of the Verizon iPhone on February 10th) Apple could roll out iOS 4.3 for all iOS devices, which, among other features, will introduce the Personal Hotspot functionality on the iPhone. The timing is also somewhat curious: the long anticipated iPad newspaper The Daily offers a free trial of two weeks, sponsored by Verizon Wireless. The Verizon iPhone will come out on Feb. 10 with the Personal Hotspot feature as an exclusive; AT&T iPhones will get Personal Hotspot only with iOS 4.3. Looking at the numbers and hints, the two-week timeframe seems likely.

It is unclear, however, why would Apple hold an event to announce both a new version of iOS and the iPad 2 as “one more thing”. Usually, new devices are always given a dedicated media event, not a brief preview during an iOS-related event. [via]