Support MacStories when you shop Amazon. Here are today’s @MacStoriesDeals on iOS, Mac, and Mac App Store apps that are on sale for a limited time, so get them before they end!
#MacStoriesDeals - Wednesday
IGN Goes Hands-On with Infinity Blade 2, Coming December 1→
IGN Goes Hands-On with Infinity Blade 2, Coming December 1
IGN’s Justin Davis got to spend some time with Chair’s upcoming iOS sequel to Infinity Blade, aptly named Infinity Blade 2, and says the game is a huge improvement over its predecessor:
It’s impressive what Chair has been able to pull off. The original Infinity Blade launched with about 10 combat locations. The sequel has over 40. It seems virtually every element of Infinity Blade 1 has been blown out. The company has aggressive post-launch plans far beyond just adding more swords and football helmets, as well. Clash Mobs are one teased feature. Players might fight an enemy with “10 million or more” hit points. If Infinity Blade players around the world whittle down the shared health pool, all participants can be awarded with special bonuses.
Infinity Blade 2 is due out December 1.
Infinity Blade 2 will feature more levels – or, in the game’s parlance, “loops” between areas and enemies – new weapons, an updated combat system and graphics completely re-engineered for Apple’s A5 chip. Indeed, Infinity Blade 2 was demoed at Apple’s “Let’s talk iPhone” media event in October to showcase the iPhone 4S’ graphics capabilities.
The original Infinity Blade was a success on the App Store (grossing $1.6 million in five days) and the first game to truly show what the A4 processor, Apple’s Retina Display and the Unreal Engine could do for mobile games. The game received a series of updates, including multiplayer support, but was criticized for its repetitive gameplay and tedious cut scenes. Infinity Blade 2 seems to have a fix for these issues, so make sure to read Davis’ preview to learn more.
Apple Storefronts Photos→
Apple Storefronts Photos
Thomas Park (via MacRumors) has created an impressive gallery of storefronts photos from every Apple Store around the globe as of September 2011. The 357 stores, organized by opening date thanks to ifoAppleStore’s database and presented through Apple’s original photos from its website, include the most recent additions such as IFC Mall in Hong Kong and Centro Sicilia in Italy. The full gallery, available here, allows you to filter stores by country with a navigation menu at the top.
Way back in August of 2001, some good friends and I took a road trip down to Virginia to attend a Radiohead concert. Unfortunately the rains came, the venue got flooded, and the concert was cancelled. Disappointing, but as something of a concession prize, I got to check out the very first brick & mortar Apple Store, which had opened in Tysons Corner just a few weeks earlier. At the time, most analysts considered Apple’s fledgling retail initiative to be doomed. But though Tysons Corner seemed like a modest start, it was a blueprint for big things to come.
Park notes that in taking a look at the gallery, it’s clear Apple follows some design conventions but they’re not afraid of breaking them and trying something new according to a retail location’s unique properties and features. So whilst most stores in the United States and Europe follow a consistent design trend, others have seen a kind of experimentation that has lead to beautiful and original designs like Regent Street, Fifth Avenue, or State Street in Santa Barbara.
Apple’s next flagship store in Grand Central Terminal is currently undergoing construction and is set to open soon. At the Q4 2011 earnings call, Apple announced that they opened 30 new retail stores in the September quarter, 21 of which were international (non-US) stores. Average revenue per-store was $10.7 million with overall revenue from retail up 1% at $3.6 billion.
Check out Thomas Park’s gallery here.
Chitika: 38% Of iPhone Users Have Updated To iOS 5
According to a new study by advertising firm and data analytics company Chitika, in the week of October 22-28 iOS 5 adoption rate has jumped to 38% between iPhone users, 30% on the iPad, and 12% on the iPod touch. Chitika, which monitors a subset of web traffic from iOS devices, claims that in two weeks iOS 5 adoption has grown from 20% on the iPhone to 38%, whilst iPod touch users have shown less interest in upgrading to Apple’s latest software update. Furthermore, Chitika data seems to show that iOS 4, which was released last year, is still installed on nearly 80% of the monitored iPod touch user base (63% on the iPad, 58% on the iPhone) with smaller numbers for iOS 3.
To put Chitika’s numbers in perspective, it’s important to understand that the company can’t monitor every single iOS device out there (over 250 million), as its stats are largely based on devices that appear in Chitika’s web logs. However, the percentages reported by the company may still provide a good insight into the upgrade pattern of iOS users after the release of iOS 5. iOS 5 was first seeded to developers in June, and it’s likely that a portion of Chitika’s initial data was made of developers running the latest betas of iOS 5 prior to the public release. On October 12th, Apple released iOS 5 for the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad, iPad 2 and iPod touch 3rd & 4th gen, alongside iCloud and a software update for OS X. On October 17th, five days after the initial iOS 5 rollout, Apple announced 25 million customers were already “using” iOS 5, with more than 20 million customers signed up for iCloud.
As Chitika and Apple don’t break down their numbers by device model, here’s two more pieces of information worth considering: older iPod touch models given away with previous Back to School promotions won’t be able to upgrade to iOS 5, and the iPhone 4S was released in seven countries on October 14th, running iOS 5 out of the box. In the first weekend, the iPhone 4S topped 4 million sales, more than doubling last year’s iPhone 4 numbers. It’s likely that the success of the iPhone 4S has affected both Chitika’s study (performed between October 22 and October 28) and Apple’s own iOS 5 usage numbers, released on October 17th. In this regard, there may be some truth to Chitika’s report that more iPhone owners have upgraded to iOS 5, especially considering the wide compatibility of the OS with phones released in 2009 and still capable of running the latest version of iOS (the iPhone 3GS).
The numbers posted by Chitika may also be affected by how iPod touch owners use their devices. Back in April, Apple said over 60 million iPod touches had been sold since 2007, and it’s widely believed a large percentage of these units were sold to teenagers and kids too young to own an iPhone or iPad, but still interested in Apple’s iOS platform, especially for games and social apps. Apple itself positioned the iPod touch as a gaming device selling more copies than Sony’s PSP or the Nintendo DS. If the iPod touch demographics are really made mostly by teenagers, a possible interpretation of slower iOS 5 adoption rates is that these users aren’t interested in upgrading to the latest version as soon as possible as other “tech savvy” owners of iPhones and iPads and early adopters. It’s likely that most owners of compatible devices will eventually upgrade to iOS 5, but they haven’t in the weeks following the iOS 5 release.
Last, two other possible factors that may have influenced the upgrade process of some users could be iOS 5’s battery life issues and the lack of a proper jailbreak for iOS 5. As for battery life, Apple has already promised a software fix and iOS 5.0.1 is being tested by developers and select end users. A subset of users may also be waiting for an “untethered jailbreak” for iOS 5 before they decide to upgrade: in April, it was reported Cydia – an unofficial marketplace for all sorts of jailbreak apps and modifications – had been installed on roughly 10-15 million iOS devices, with over 1.5 million users logging into Cydia daily. JailbreakMe, a web-based tool that allowed users to jailbreak iOS 4.3 devices including the iPad 2, was used over 2 million times shortly after its release.
You can check out Chitika’s numbers and full study here. As iOS 5 adoption grows in the next months, so will the number of App Store apps that require the latest version of iOS to be installed, and it will be interesting to see which devices Apple will support with the next major version of iOS – especially the iPhone 3GS, which came out in 2009 and is still available for sale.
Apple Releases iAd Producer 2.0
Apple today released an update for iAd Producer, its developer-oriented design tool that enables easy creation of high-quality, interactive content for Apple’s iAd platform. First released in December of last year, iAd Producer is an HTML and CSS layout application that automatically manages the technologies behind iAd (CSS 3, JavaScript, HTML5) to offer a visual aid in the designing process of rich and animated ads with an easy-to-use interface. iAd Producer allows developers to create and re-use their own page templates and components, manage the structure and flow of iAds for specific iOS devices in a single window UI, and test the results with a built-in simulator.
Today’s update, available here, brings changes in the animation section, an improved editor, project validation and a new Object List. The new Project Validation “automatically checks the size and type of image assets, and that pages and components are configured correctly” and makes sure an iAd has been built correctly before submitting it to Apple; it even checks for possible performance issues and other common errors. The Object List is another handy addition for developers, providing one-click access to all the objects or elements in a single page. Among changes to the JavaScript editor and other performance improvements, iAd Producer’s animation tools let you pick from a library of effects and animations that include wipes, fades, spinning effects, cube transitions and more.
iAd Producer is available for download on Apple’s website. A list of features is available on the app’s product page.
Firefox 8 Officially Released
In late September Mozilla released version 7 of its Firefox browser, and as part of the company’s new fast release cycle we noted a few days after the release that a beta of Firefox 8 had already been seeded to developers. In the article, we noted Mozilla promised Firefox 8 would deliver better tab management, deeper Twitter integration, and new features for web developers.
Uploaded to the company’s FTP servers a few days ago, Firefox 8 has been officially released today, with a blog post from Mozilla outlining the differences from the previous version. As with the Firefox 8 beta, Firefox 8 final comes with an option in the Preferences to load existing tabs (the pages you left open the last time you quit the browser) only when they’re selected. This should improve the browser’s startup times, as it’s no longer forced to reload all tabs upon launch.
Another minor new feature is the addition of a Twitter icon in the app’s search box. Mozilla says “Twitter search is currently available in English, Portuguese, Slovenian and Japanese versions of Firefox”, and the new options basically just loads a new Twitter search page for anything you type in the search field – don’t expect Firefox to smartly recognize @usernames or #hashtags, and open Twitter profiles or hashtag pages instead of plain search.
Alongside better handling of third-party add-ons, security and stability fixes, Firefox 8 introduces a series of improvements for web developers:
Improved performance and memory handling when using <audio> and <video> elements
- Added CORS support for cross-domain textures in WebGL
- Added support for HTML5 context menus
- Added support for insertAdjacentHTML
- Improved CSS hyphen support for many languages
- Improved WebSocket support
As far as Lion support goes, whereas Google updated Chrome to take advantage of the OS’ new native scrolling and full-screen mode, Mozilla’s browser still lacks any sort of Lion integration and support for new functionalities.
To read more about Firefox 8’s new features, head over Mozilla’s blog post on the update. Expect a beta of Firefox 9 to become publicly available soon; you can download Firefox 8 from Mozilla’s website here.
Walter Isaacson’s “Steve Jobs” In Amazon’s Best Books of 2011→
Walter Isaacson’s “Steve Jobs” In Amazon’s Best Books of 2011
In a press release published this morning, Amazon has announced the 100 Best Books of 2011, which include Editors’ Picks for the Top 100 Books of the Year and “Top 10 lists in more than two dozen categories”. Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs is in the Top 10 editors’ picks ranking at #8:
Few in history have transformed their time like Steve Jobs has. In this timely book, Isaacson paints a vivid, compelling portrait that pulls no punches – the end result is satisfying, complete, and gives insight into a man who managed to turn his contradictions into potent strengths.
Last week, “Steve Jobs” was reported to have sold 379,000 copies in the first week of US availability, and 37,000 copies in the UK in first five days of sales. Those numbers didn’t include digital sales for the book, which is available on Apple’s iBookstore as well as Amazon’s Kindle Store. After its release on October 24th, “Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson quickly became a bestseller on Amazon, suggesting the bio would be one of the most successful books this holiday season.
Apple Store App Updated with Personal Pickup and EasyPay
Two weeks ago Apple began rolling out a new initiative that allowed customers to order products through the online Apple Store and go to a retail store to collect them. Apple quickly trialled the initiative for three San Francisco stores before rolling it out to the rest of the Apple Stores in the Bay Area and New York City. Following speculation that suggested Apple could release an updated Apple Store app last Thursday, and then on Friday alongside the Fifth Avenue Apple Store renovations, the company has released Apple Store 2.0 in the App Store last night, enabling a number of functionalities such as Personal Pickup and EasyPay.
Personal Pickup lets customers decide to order an item online and pick it up at a local retail store. Apple says most products will be available within an hour in the US, although rumors claimed customers would be able to walk into sa store within 12 minutes after the purchase, skip lines and pick up their order. There’s no confirmation of this except that the feature is US-only for most in-stock orders.
Another new feature is EasyPay, a built-in functionality of the app that lets customers complete an in-store transaction for select accessories by quickly scanning a barcode with the iPhone’s camera. The feature is US-only and it requires the iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S, and an Apple ID with iTunes credit will be used to complete transactions.
Last, the updated Apple Store app comes with a new order status section in the More tab to track current and previous orders.
This 2.0 update largely falls in line with rumors from the past weeks, focusing on self-checkout and in-store pickups as the main new features for customers and Apple retail employees. These new features are, apparently, something Apple is heavily betting on to facilitate the shopping experience at its retail stores, and they are available now in the free update from the App Store.
Screenshots Show “Panorama Mode” Enabled On iOS 5
Shortly after the first beta of iOS 5 was seeded to developers in June, a series of code strings suggested the company could implement a panoramic photo-taking feature in the OS, allowing users to shoot wider photos with a Panorama functionality allegedly similar to what third-party apps like 360 Panorama and Pano are already offering. As Apple kept seeding more betas and eventually released iOS 5 to the public, Panorama was nowhere to be found in iOS, suggesting Apple wasn’t ready to debut the feature yet.
A series of screenshots posted by programmer and iPhone hacker Conrad Kramer earlier today, however, show the interface and options for what could have been Panorama in iOS 5. In particular, the screenshots show a very simplified UI to take multiple shots in a single camera session “from left to right”. It is unclear whether the design of the functionality was final but Apple decided to save it for a future version of iOS, or if the company decided Panorama wasn’t simply good enough for iOS 5. While Kramer seems to promise a Cydia tweak will be released to easily activate the feature on jailbroken phones, developers can play around with Panorama by manually changing a key on their devices. The resulting image of an iOS Panorama has also been posted on Dropbox showing a far from perfect output, although we can’t speculate on how the picture was taken, or the stability of unofficial, hidden iOS 5 functionalities.
As we mentioned above, those willing to check out panoramic photos on iOS right now should check out Occipital’s 360, which we reviewed here and here. Apple is working on an iOS 5.0 update that will introduce security fixes, better battery life and gestures on the original iPad, but Panorama wasn’t mentioned in the release notes for the new beta software.
Update: Cydia developer @chpwn has already submitted a tweak called “Firebreak” to Cydia to enable panorama mode on iOS devices.