Evernote Releases Skitch for iPad

Skitch is a popular tool for annotating screenshots and images with the ability to quickly share them with others. It was purchased by Evernote back in August of this year and today they are proud to present Skitch for iPad.

Skitch is the amazingly fun and surprisingly powerful way to move your ideas and projects forward using fewer words. With Skitch, annotate and draw on just about anything that you see, whether it’s a new or existing photo, a webpage, screenshot, map, or a blank canvas. Then, share your work with friends, colleagues or save it all to Evernote. It couldn’t be simpler.

Skitch for iPad has a handful of useful features as well as some not so useful features, all of which are housed in the very common “home screen” style interface. I am not personally a fan of apps that lump their main features in to a grid of large square icons. I think it is a lazy approach to user experience on a touch screen device. The fonts, colors and images used for the layout elements makes the entire app feel like a cartoon. After all the featured icons are the thumbnails of the drawings you have added. To remove them you have to tap and hold like you would expect to do on a home screen except the icons don’t jiggle as an indication. Because of this, it feels like an unfinished implementation. When you are finished removing images you can’t just tap in an empty area of the screen like you would with an actual home screen, you have to find the tiny Done button on the bottom corner of the screen. These are certainly not a huge issues, just more like disappointments and it all goes back to the lack of thought that went in to the design of this app.

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Steve Jobs to be Honored by The Recording Academy with a Trustees Award

The Recording Academy has announced its 2012 Special Merit Awards recipients; Steve Jobs, Dave Bartholomew, and Rudy Van Gelder are expected to be formally awarded a Trustees Award on February 11th, 2012, during a special invitation-only ceremony. The Trustees Award is awarded by the Recording Academy’s National Trustees to those who have made significant contributions (other than performances) to the recording industry.

Steve Jobs transformed the music industry when he unveiled the first iPod in 2001. The iTunes Store was unveiled almost two years later in April, 2003, ushering in a world of digital music that could be immediately downloaded and synced to Apple’s portable MP3 players. In 2010, Apple announced that they had surprased 10 billion songs downloaded from the iTunes Store. Steve Jobs was known for his love of Bob Dylan, and Apple recently succeeded on adding The Beatles to iTunes. Steve Jobs was also nominated by NBC News’ Brian Williams to be 2011’s Person of the Year.

“This year’s honorees offer a variety of brilliance, contributions and lasting impressions on our culture,” said Neil Portnow, President/CEO of The Recording Academy. “It is an honor to recognize such a diverse group of individuals whose talents and achievements have had an indelible impact on our industry.”

The Recording Academy also announced recipients of the Lifetime Achievement Award category which includes Allman Brothers Band, Antonio Carlos Jobin, Diana Ross, George Jones, Gil Scott-Heron, Glen Campbell, and the Memphis Horns.

Formally, the 54th annual GRAMMY awards will be televised by CBS at the Staples Center in Los Angeles on February 12th.

[Grammy.com & Mercury News]

 

 

Apple Rolls Out New “Complete My Season” Feature, Improves “Complete My Album”

Over the past 24 hours Apple has introduced “Complete My Season” for iTunes TV shows and has improved its existing “Complete My Album” feature. The “Complete My Season” feature enables users who have purchased some episodes from a TV season to purchase the rest of the season using the “Season Pass” but at a reduced price that takes into account the already purchased episodes. It allows users to easily purchase all the episodes of a TV season with effectively one click and not having to worry about purchasing one of the episodes again, when you already own it.

However it appears as though the feature may be limited to those in the US iTunes Store - I checked on my TV purchases in the Australian Store and was unable to utilise this feature, similarly, it appears not to be enabled in the UK. If you live outside the US and do have access to this new iTunes feature, please let us know in the comments below.

The similar feature for music albums, “Complete My Album” (which has been available for a few years) also received a nice update today. Previously, this feature could only be used in the first 180 days since purchasing a song from an album. Today MacRumors notes that Apple has revised the support document about the feature, noting that there is no longer any reference to the 180 day limit (see below for current statement).

How long do I have to take advantage of Complete My Album?

When you buy individual songs from any qualifying album, you can complete the album at any time, as long as the album is available for sale on the iTunes Store.

[Via MacRumors (1) (2)]

Today Only: Buy Apps and Help Bring Clean Water to Developing Nations

Apps for Water is an app drive where all proceeds of apps purchased will support charity: water, a non-profit organization that brings clean drinking water to developing nations. Clean water improves health and sanitation, brings change to communities by protecting women and children, and aids in the economic growth of poverty stricken nations.

Every $1 invested in improved water access and sanitation yields an average of $12 in economic returns, depending on the project.

Today only, by purchasing one of the listed Mac, iPad, or iPhone apps participating in the Apps for Water project, your purchase will aid families in need of clean water. If you’ve been looking to purchase Smile’s TextExpander, Useful Fruit Software’s Pear Note, or Gaucho Software’s Seasonality Core, consider this an opportunity to acquire new software while giving something back in return. For those not in need of a new app, you can also donate to charity: water directly through their website.

The drive will end after Tuesday, December 20th.

[Apps for Water via Cult of Mac]

Apple Acquires Anobit for $500 Million

Anobit

Anobit

Anobit, an Israeli flash storage company specializing in flash memory used in Apple’s iPads, iPhones, and iPods, has been purchased by Apple for $500 Million according to a report from Calcalist. Anobit is Apple’s first acquisition from Israel. The half billion dollar acquisition is the largest in Apple’s history writes Fortune’s Philip Elmer-DeWitt:

The price – a reported $500 million – is larger than the $472 million it paid for NeXT, once 14 years of inflation is taken into account.

As a brief aside, Apple announced their merger with NeXT 15 years ago today.

Apple’s commitment to flash memory and in securing component supplies are core to Apple’s business. Previously, Apple has purchased P.A. Semi in 2008 for its custom chip designs, and have also acquired chip maker Intrinsity last year for ARM based chip technologies that improve the overall processing speed in products like Apple’s dual-core A5 processor in the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S. The Israel-based Calcalist notes that Apple has made the purchase thanks to Anobit’s improvements in flash technology. Steven Scheer of Reuters adds that “The chip may as much as double the memory volume in the new iPads and MacBooks.”

Erica Ogg from GigaOM writes:

Anobit makes flash memory devices that can use the popular Multi Level Cell (MLC) flash-based solid-state drives. Consumer devices use MLC flash because it’s cheaper, but it’s also generally less reliable than the more common Single Level Cell flash drives. Anobit’s technology makes MLC more reliable.

In addition to the purchase, Calcalist write that Apple is also planning to build a research centre in Israel, which would be their first outside the United States. Apple could join the likes of other R&D operations in Israel, such as Intel, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Qualcomm.

[Calcalist via Reuters]

 

Disruptions: Wearing Your Computer on Your Sleeve→

Disruptions: Wearing Your Computer on Your Sleeve

The big headline for many Apple weblogs this morning comes from Nick Bilton of the New York Times:

Over the last year, Apple and Google have secretly begun working on projects that will become wearable computers. Their main goal: to sell more smartphones. (In Google’s case, more smartphones sold means more advertising viewed.)

The idea that Apple and Google are working on secret projects like this isn’t interesting, but what is interesting is the idea that wearable devices are going to be sold as main drivers for future smartphones sales. The incentive to buy a future iPhone or Android smartphone would be that it ties into a wearable device you must have.

The rest of Bilton’s piece is a wishful vision that the future holds for us an augmented reality where wearable devices, powered by our smartphones, better describe and organize information in the world around us. Wearable devices will become both fashion accessories and gatherers of information.

Apple has already asked their customers to affirm wether wearing the iPod nano as a watch was a good idea. Maybe the next iPod we’ll see will be an actual watch since we’re already half way there. The iPod nano isn’t either terribly functional or fashionable as a watch in my opinion, but it desires to be a combination of both. Will it be a selling point for a future iPhone in the near future? Doubtful. People have to get comfortable with the idea first.

The tech industry is just starting to introduce wearable devices onto the market. Jawbone’s UP works with any iPhone (and eventually any mainstream Android smartphone), and the Fitbit doesn’t even require a phone tether, but it does have a companion app. These products are successful not because they’re flashy, but because they’re discreet. The UP for example not only blends in with casual attire, but it doesn’t look like a wearable computer at all. It looks like a fancy bracelet.

Smartphones are becoming more common in today’s modern world. We often focus on flagship phones, but smartphones are close to simply becoming the default. No longer smartphones, but just phones. The question we have to ask ourselves at this point is, “What’s the next compelling and logical step?” I’m not sure upselling you a wearable gadget is the answer. Just look at the MOTOACTV for today’s comparison.

But something that’s discreet and functionally works to improve your lifestyle? We’re already doing this and seeking to make it better. Augmented reality might be the next step, but smartphone software will make this a commonality long before we have separate wearable devices doing so. In the meantime people want to quantify their lifestyles. Apple and Google might be working to make wearable gadgets fashionable, but I believe it’ll be companies like Basis who’ll be pushing the envelope of wearable devices with the Quantified Self. Health and mindfulness about ourselves is where the future of wearable devices is currently headed.

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