SHAPE Creates iPhone App to Get WWDC Ticket Alerts

Apple’s WWDC, or Worldwide Developers Conference, is the highlight for Apple developers working with iOS and OS X operating systems. WWDC is a great opportunity for peers to meet and greet and learn more about each other and the industry as a whole. It’s also a highlight for anyone that looks forward to hearing announcements and product reveals from Apple, such as a new iPhone and major iOS updates.

After last year’s WWDC, SHAPE met with many fellow developers and in turn the experience inspired them to continue making better apps. Tickets for WWDC can be hard to come by, last year’s event sold out in less than 10 hours and many developers missed their chance to get tickets because of travel, sleep, work arrangements, etc. This year could sell out as fast or even faster than 2011.

SHAPE took it upon themselves to develop an app specifically for WWDC ticket sales that works as an alarm. It monitors twitter for the keyword “wwdc” and also patrols the official WWDC site for changes. When announcements or keywords are triggered, the app sends a push notification and will activate an alarm within the WWDC app.

Video after the break. Read more

Apple Responds to Contact Data Access, Will Now Require Explicit User Approval

It’s been a week since the Path (and other iOS apps) debacle regarding access and storage of address book data, and now Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr told AllThingsD that soon apps that use address book data will require explicit user permission to do so.

Apps that collect or transmit a user’s contact data without their prior permission are in violation of our guidelines,” Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr told AllThingsD. “We’re working to make this even better for our customers, and as we have done with location services, any app wishing to access contact data will require explicit user approval in a future software release.

Apple has done the right thing by addressing this issue as it has blown up all over the Internet, The Next Web has a nice rundown of “What iOS apps are grabbing your data, why they do it and what should be done.” Apple users can be assured that in the near future no app can read and transmit contact data without the users permission.

Apple’s response comes right off the heels of an inquiry to Congress that iOS developers could be accessing and storing user data without permission.

This incident raises questions about whether Apple’s iOS app developer policies and practices may fall short when it comes to protecting the information of iPhone users and their contacts,” House Energy & Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman and Commerce Manufacturing and Trade Subcommittee Chair G.K. Butterfield said in a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook. “How many iOS apps in the U.S. iTunes Store transmit information from the address book? How many of those ask for the user’s consent before transmitting their contacts’ information?

The entire letter from the committee can be read over at AllThingsD.

Clear: A Delightful and Clever Todo App

Some apps deliver a certain joy that simply comes from swiping and swooshing through the interface, poking at various elements, and pinching things onscreen. Clear is delightful — it will make you smile. It makes you reconsider the necessity of navigation bars and tool bars and tab bars. We’re used to switching views by tapping at back buttons or icons, but what happens when you take away these common navigational tools? You end up relying on your own honesty and the customer’s intuition. And an honest interface can bring about some terrific ideas.

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Tweet Library 2.0 Review

The last time I wrote about Twitter clients, I noted how I’d rather settle with a single app for power users, and have other developers innovate on top of Twitter and the technologies offered by Apple to provide a unique take on the standard Twitter experience. Unfortunately, until today very few developers seem to have believed in the market potential for innovative Twitter clients that go beyond refreshing your timeline and catching DMs, with Riverfold Software’s Tweet Library being the best example of what’s possible to do by leveraging the Twitter API, focusing on another kind of experience.

I initially reviewed Tweet Library when it hit version 1.0 on iPad. I wrote:

Tweet Library is a searchable local archive of your Twitter activity, with promising online functionalities that show good room for improvement. At $9.99 in the App Store it might not be an app for everyone, but if Twitter curation is your thing, this is the best you can have on the iPad right now.

Released earlier today, Tweet Library 2.0 offers some fantastic improvements for those who began using the app on the iPad last year, adding a completely new iPhone interface as part of the free, universal update that will have Twitter curation nerds drooling in new functionalities. Read more

Transcript of Tim Cook’s Q&A at Goldman Sachs Technology Conference→

Transcript of Tim Cook’s Q&A at Goldman Sachs Technology Conference

Earlier today, Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke at the Goldman Sachs Technology Conference, providing some interesting details into Apple’s product philosophy and strategy going forward. MacRumors has posted a transcript of the Q&A with Tim Cook, which contains some notable points.

On the iPad:

The reason that it is so large in my view is that the iPad has stood on the shoulders of everything that came before it. The iTunes Store was already in play, the App Store was already in play. People were trained on iPhone. They already knew about multitouch. Lots of things that became intuitive when you used a tablet, came from before. I gave one to my mother and she knew how to use it from watching the commercial.

On Siri and iCloud:

Both of these things go in the profound category. They’re things that you’ll talk to your grandkids about that are profound changes.

On cannibalization of the Mac:

iPad has cannibalized some Mac sales. The way that we view cannibalization is that we prefer to do it to ourselves than let someone else do it.

The whole transcript is interesting and gives some perspective on Tim Cook as CEO and “product guy” who’s in charge of Apple now. Make sure to check out the entire Q&A here.

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WSJ: iPad 3 To Feature LTE→

WSJ: iPad 3 To Feature LTE

Following a report about a possible iPad 3 announcement on March 7 posted earlier today, The Wall Street Journal is claiming the next-generation iPad will feature 4G LTE connectivity for AT&T and Verizon in the United States.

Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc. will sell a version of the coming iPad that runs on their newest fourth-generation wireless networks, according to people familiar with the matter, as the battle to cash in on big investments in mobile broadband heats up.

According to The WSJ, the iPad 3 will fall back to 3G where LTE isn’t available, and “it couldn’t be learned” whether other carriers would launch LTE plans for the iPad 3 besides AT&T and Verizon, the two largest carriers by number of subscribers in the US. Back in January, Bloomberg reported that the new iPad would come with a higher-res display, a quad-core processor, and 4G LTE connectivity.

For an overview of the current LTE scenario around the globe, check out our previous story ”2012, The Next iPhone, And LTE” – it’s interesting to notice how The Wall Street Journal says the LTE iPad 3 will provide a good testing opportunity for carriers, whereas most carriers worldwide are still far behind in the LTE rollout for consumers.

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iMore: iPad 3 Keynote On March 7→

iMore: iPad 3 Keynote On March 7

Citing “sources who have been reliable in the past”, Rene Ritchie at iMore claims that Apple will announce its next-generation iPad at a media event on Wednesday, March 7.

According to sources who have been reliable in the past, Apple currently plans to hold their iPad 3 announcement on Wednesday, March 7, 2012. Along with the 2048×1536 Retina display, the iPad 3 will feature a quad-core Apple 6 system-on-a-chip, and possibly 4G LTE networking.

Whilst we have refrained from reporting every single iPad 3 rumor to date, Ritchie’s report seems to make sense for a couple of reasons. First, well-connected John Paczkowski at All Things D is claiming that Apple will be holding an iPad 3 event in the first week of March. The Loop’s Jim Dalrymple has chimed in confirming AllThingsD’s report with a “Yep”. iMore, previously known as TiPB, doesn’t cover rumors much, but when they did last year, they were only off by a week, and correctly pinpointed the nature of the iPhone 4S (which became available for pre-order on October 7th, went on sale a week later).

The iPad 3 was previously rumored to be feature a high-res Retina Display, faster “A6” processor, and LTE connectivity. Back in August, The Wall Street Journal wrote the iPad 3 would launch in “early 2012” with a high-resolution display.

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