Hands On with iOS 6 Maps

When Apple launched the iPhone in 2007, Google was a partner and not a competitor. Apple’s Maps, with data supplied by Google, was famously demoed by Steve Jobs when he searched for nearby Starbucks establishments and made a prank phone call with a tap of his finger. When Apple unveiled their iPad three years later in 2010, Steve Jobs was equally delighted to show off Maps, as he pinched the display to get a bigger overhead view of the Eiffel tower.

Initially, Maps was a simple mobile companion to Google Maps. Standard, hybrid, and satellite views were there, as was the ability to show traffic congestion and get driving directions between two locations of interest. It wasn’t until just over a year later with iOS 2.2 that Maps was improved with walking directions, public transit information, and street view. On the iPad, a terrain view was added. Alternate routes for directions came later in iOS 5 alongside estimated time of arrival and the ability to print directions via AirPrint. Over time, it became a robust Maps application that was better than Google Maps on the web.

What Apple did with Google Maps was pretty incredible when it was first introduced with the iPhone and later on the iPad. In contrast to using sliders and buttons on the web, Apple demonstrated that maps could be intuitive to navigate with just your fingertips. Panning around a map with your finger, tapping on search results to pull up business information, and navigating the world with Street View simply felt right on a touchscreen. Google provided often accurate search results and map data, while Apple provided a delightful interface to show their world through.

Today, using maps on our smartphones to find our way is an everyday habit. Frequent fliers rely on their smartphones to find their way in new locales, while city dwellers actively use smartphones to request public transit information. The convenience offered by our smartphones makes it possible for us to actively plan our days around city schedules, plan road trips, and get directions to a business for an all important interview. Beyond Apple’s Maps, companies like TomTom, Garmin, and Navigon added to the iPhone’s capabilities by providing real-time navigation and voice-guided directions through apps from the App Store. Yet competitors, such as Android with Google Maps and Google Maps Navigation, and Windows Phone 7 with Bing Maps and Nokia Drive, were offering GPS navigation on their ecosystems for free. For iOS 6, the missing piece to be filled-in for Apple’s Maps would have to be such a feature.

In iOS 6, Apple’s Maps is a headlining feature. During this year’s WWDC 2012 Keynote on June 11th, turn-by-turn navigation was showcased for Apple’s brand new Maps application in concert with the display of real-time traffic conditions. Apple added interactive 3D views and Flyover to select cities, giving maps a 3rd dimension on top of a traditional satellite view. As impressive as Apple’s demonstrations were, the most interesting feature are Apple’s new vector based maps, completely redesigned “from the ground up” as a replacement for Google’s Map data.

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Apple Releases OS X 10.8.2

Following the release of iOS 6, Apple just pushed an update to OS X Mountain Lion as well, which reaches version 10.8.2. Available for download on the Mac App Store, 10.8.2 brings Facebook integration to OS X, working similarly to Facebook in iOS 6, and various stability improvements. Like in iOS 6, Facebook is now available as a social service to log in from the System Preferences, and there are options to update contact information and pictures through Facebook as well as system-wide sharing menus.

On the feature set side, Facebook is now also integrated in Game Center (for friend recommendations and like buttons for games), Power Nap is now supported on the late 2010 MacBook Air, and iMessage introduces support for phone numbers alongside email addresses, just like on iOS 6.

You can find the full changelog after the break. We’ll update this post with direct links as soon as they’re available.+

Update — You’ll find the direct downloads below:

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iOS 6: Tips, Tricks & Hidden Features

Every time Apple releases an OS X or iOS update we enjoy giving our readers quality walk-throughs, feature guides and my favorite – tips and tricks. Every Apple power user can attest that shortcuts and knowing many of the little things is a fantastic way to improve the user experience. I enjoy discovering as many as I can so that I feel well-versed as an iOS user and can help friends and family when they are either troubleshooting or simply want to know how to do thing easier or faster. There’s so much fulfillment when you’re able to help someone and it’s also a great way to start a conversation with another Apple user. We uncovered most of these ourselves but this thread on the MacRumors forums site has a fantastic list as well.

More iOS 6 coverage here.

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The iOS 6 Trilemma

In some ways, iOS 6 is not a major update. And yet, in others, it’s possibly the biggest thing to happen to iOS since iPhone OS 1. Both of these assertions have far-reaching consequences for the users, third-party developers, and Apple itself.

In June, soon after the official announcement and preview of iOS 6, I concluded my general overview of the software with four questions. Looking back at that article now, those questions are more relevant than ever.

  • “Will the App Store redesign also bring new curation and search features, as many developers asked?”
  • “We didn’t quite get the “silver” system theme that was rumored; Apple seems to be moving towards blue gradients as a standard UI element, but not everyone’s liking the change for toolbars and status bars. Will they reconsider or improve upon today’s beta in terms of looks come Fall 2012?”
  • “With a new iPhone likely to be released in October, will we see even more features being added to the OS to take advantage of the new device’s hardware?”
  • “Will Google release a standalone Maps application?”

The answer to three of them is “no”. The last one – whether Google will release a standalone Maps application for iOS on the App Store – could be a “most certainly yes”, but we don’t know any more details.

iOS 6 is a controversial release, in that through the following days we’ll likely witness several news outlets and independent bloggers declare Apple’s doom or absolute genius, depending on the Internet clique they choose to side with. I think that, in this case, the truth lies somewhere in the middle – a gray area that needs a calm and thorough consideration. At the same time, I also believe that the “controversial” nature of iOS 6 needs to be analyzed for its various facets and reasons of existence. Why did Apple choose these features for iOS 6? What does the user make of it?

I have been testing iOS 6 for the past weeks, and I have (slowly) come to the conclusion that there’s no easy way to cover this update with a traditional review strategy. Instead, I have decided to take a look at the software from multiple perspectives, understanding the possible implications, downsides, and improvements for each one of them.

While last year I would have answered to the question “Should I upgrade to iOS 5 right away” with a resounding “Yes”, this year I’m not so sure about the “right away” part. Read more

Apple: Two Million iPhone 5 Pre-Orders In First 24 Hours

With a press release, Apple announced that the iPhone 5 topped two million pre-orders in the first 24 hours. The new device has doubled the record previously set by the iPhone 4S, which set 1 million pre-orders in the first 24 hours.

Apple has been doubling pre-orders for new iPhones every year: in 2010, the iPhone 4 saw 600,000 pre-orders in the first 24 hours, the iPhone 4S saw over 1 million, and, now, the iPhone 5 is seeing over 2 million in the same timeframe.

Apple today announced pre-orders of its iPhone 5 topped two million in just 24 hours, more than double the previous record of one million held by iPhone 4S. Demand for iPhone 5 exceeds the initial supply and while the majority of pre-orders will be delivered to customers on September 21, many are scheduled to be delivered in October. iPhone 5 is the thinnest and lightest iPhone ever, completely redesigned to feature a stunning new 4-inch Retina display; an Apple-designed A6 chip for blazing fast performance; and ultrafast wireless technology*—all while delivering even better battery life.**

“iPhone 5 pre-orders have shattered the previous record held by iPhone 4S and the customer response to iPhone 5 has been phenomenal,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “iPhone 5 is the best iPhone yet, the most beautiful product we’ve ever made, and we hope customers love it as much as we do.”

Last weekend, Apple said that it was blown away by the success of initial pre-orders, and this morning U.S. carrier AT&T confirmed the iPhone 5 has been the most successful device (in terms of pre-order numbers) to date. Pre-orders for the iPhone 5 began in the initial launch countries (US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore) on Friday, September 14th, for a release set on the 21st. On September 28th, more countries will follow (Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovaki, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland) though it’s still unclear whether those countries will get online pre-orders as well.

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Furthermore, Apple is targeting 100 countries and 240 carriers by December 2012 for iPhone 5 availability.

The iPhone 5 is a major upgrade featuring a taller screen, new CPU, improved camera processing, faster performance, 4G LTE, and more. Check out our complete overview for all the details.

Moving From iPhoto To Dropbox

I like iPhoto on the Mac. The app’s interface sports Apple’s proverbial attention to polish and details, the Faces feature is nice, and I like the possibility to visualize photos on a map, just as I find Photo Stream very convenient for my blogging workflow. However, I realized that I don’t want to depend on iPhoto to store the photos that, twenty years from now, I’ll look back to as memories. I need my photos — moments captured as .jpeg files — to be photos, not a database. And at the same time, I need to be able to access them now from any device I have without having to worry about sync, apps, formats, and corrupted entries. I have decided to move all my photos from iPhoto to Dropbox.

This is something I have been thinking about for the past year. Do I want my photos to be stored inside someone else’s app? And if not, why not do the same for any other media I store on my computer? Should I also ditch Rdio and go back to neatly organized .mp3 files in the Finder?

I have come to the conclusion that photos are irreplaceable. Decades from now, I’ll probably be able to find a 2Pac record somewhere online or in a record store (will those still exist?). But not so with photos. If something — anything — happens to my photos, they’ll be gone forever. There won’t be anyone able to give me my memories back. Just as I do for text files — the words I write — I have chosen to store my photos — the things I experience — as .jpeg files, a format that should still be around for the foreseeable future. Read more

Paper 1.1 Now Available With Faster Ink, “Move”, “Duplicate” and “Easy Add” Features

2012 Apple Design Award winner Paper by FiftyThree has reached version 1.1 today, adding a number of much requested features and improvements to bring better organization of pages and smoother ink. Paper, a digital sketching app for the iPad, made headlines earlier this year as it somehow managed to make the process of drawing on screen fun and intuitive. With sharing built-in, a clever in-app purchase mechanism (you can buy single tools at $1.99 each, or the entire package at $6.99), and a simple multi-touch based interface, Paper has become for many the best way to take quick visual notes and draw sketches on iOS.

Today’s major update brings up to 3x faster virtual ink for every tool included in Paper, and users can now also draw with their fingers (or a stylus) to the edge of the screen, which wasn’t previously possible. In an interview with The Verge’s Ellis Hamburger, the Paper team shared some of the secrets behind their technology:

When you draw, you want strokes to appear at an even speed and even rate, which gives the system a reliable feel. If you hit the CPU or GPU at an even rate, the results end up being very smooth,” he says. Every brush inside FiftyThree’s “Expressive Ink Engine” has been fine tuned to be up to three times faster, and you can now draw all the way to the edge of the screen — a top request from users. The 1.1 update also saves battery, since requests are made to the iPad’s processor more consistently. The Rewind feature, which lets you undo brush strokes, also received some attention in Paper 1.1, and responds accordingly based on how quickly you move your two fingers in a circle.

The big new feature of this new version, however, is the improved organization. Relying once again on multi-touch to navigate the core elements of the app, users can now tap & hold with one finger to select a page from a notebook, then use the other hand to navigate other notebooks as they normally would; once in another notebook, the tap & hold can be released to drop the page in its new location. The “move” feature is a welcome addition that, alongside the new Duplicate function, should make for a much better experience for those who rely on Paper for wireframes, project templates, and more.

Paper 1.1 is a good update, especially thanks to the focus on better organization of pages, which was a huge downside of previous versions of the app. Check out Paper 1.1 on the App Store, and the official promo video below. (Also: pardon my poor drawing skills. But, yes, real coffee is Italian)
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iPhone 5 Now Available for Pre-order

The iPhone 5 is now available for pre-order at Apple.com. Fortunately, it does not require missiles or the Morph Ball to obtain.

Ordering the iPhone 5 tonight? Your best bet is Apple’s Online Store. Even better is the Apple Store app, which might fetch you a new iPhone faster than the guy who’s waiting for the web server to respond to his order request. Last year lots of people had good luck with the carrier’s online stores for the 4S, Sprint (after a short delay) and Verizon especially. We’ve listed the United State’s carrier’s stores below so you can hopefully order without hassle.

The iPhone 5 is an awesome power-up for anyone on the iPhone 3GS or the iPhone 4. The iPhone 5 is super thin and lightweight, has a larger 4-inch display, and has twice as much horsepower as the iPhone 4S thanks to its A6 processor. Available in white and black in 16 GB, 32 GB, and 64 GB models ($199, $299, $399 respectively) on AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon, the iPhone 5 is equipped to utilize the incredible speed of LTE wireless networks without sacrificing battery life. With an improved 8 MP camera that takes pictures 40% faster than the iPhone 4S, includes wideband audio for clearer calls (carrier support coming soon), an even more vibrant Retina display, and packaged with Apple’s completely redesigned EarPods, the iPhone 5 isn’t just a incremental upgrade. It’s redesigned from the ground up.

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Don’t know if you want to upgrade? The iPhone 5 is bound to be a fantastic phone, but having the latest and greatest isn’t necessary, especially if you have the iPhone 4S (and you guys bought that knowing you would be locked in for the two-year long haul… riiiight?). The iPhone 5 has no differentiating features in iOS 6 over the 4S — you’ll have Panorama and all of Siri’s latest features. Having LTE would be nice, as would be having apps launch faster and games look prettier, but I’m betting you’ll see the upgrades you care about — more battery-life and a significantly improved camera — with the iPhone 5S or whatever the heck Apple names it. (After all, they did break the space-name-time-continuum by naming their 6th phone the iPhone 5.) Plus, you’ll feel good when you leap-frog the iPhone 5 owners next year. Boom. Circle of life.

If you have an iPhone 3GS or iPhone 4 (most of you) that’s due for an upgrade, of course you should upgrade — the iPhone 4S was a significant update a year ago, so you guys are really gonna feel how much faster iOS is with an even newer iPhone. No questions asked, do it. I can’t help you with picking a color though.

If you happen to be someone who got a free 3GS or a $100 iPhone 4 recently (and will be locked-in to a contract for a while), you can at least have some solace: you’ll still be getting iOS 6, but not necessarily all of the features (no Siri). Depending when your contract ends or full upgrade eligibility begins, I recommend waiting for Apple’s next flagship iPhone and ordering it then. That way, you’ll get on Apple’s cycle, won’t have to worry as much about being out of date, and won’t be behind the curve on software if Apple pulls another feature-X-won’t-work-on-older-phones bit as Apple did with Siri between the iPhone 4 and 4S.