iPhone 5 To Include New iOS 5 “Assistant” Voice Feature

In a new article published this morning, 9to5mac claims to have the details surrounding Assistant, a new software service that has been built on top of Apple’s acquisition of Siri last year, and which should be enabled on the next generation iPhone. According to the website, Assistant will run on next-gen hardware as it’ll require the iPhone 5’s purported A5 processor and 1 GB of RAM. These hardware upgrades have been rumored before, and it wouldn’t come as a surprise if Apple decided to bump the specs of the iPhone 4 to accomodate more RAM, which would allow for more tasks running in the background. Such tasks would include Assistant, which is described as a brand new way to have “an infinite amount of information” available at the sound of your voice.

9to5mac reports Assistant will work with your voice, and it’ll be activated similarly to how Voice Control can be opened on older versions of iOS. Unlike Voice Control, Assistant should take up a smaller section of the screen – like the multitasking tray – and it’ll be associated to the Home button. Assistant-related code has been found in the iOS 5 SDK before, and 9to5mac confirms the new service will be integrated with contacts, messages, Maps, email and pretty much any other feature that supports systemwide frameworks on iOS – like Calendar and the message sheet.

Some of the features mentioned in the article:

  • There’s an “info” button in the Assistant UI to “view some of the most commonly spoken commands”.
  • You can create calendar events, reminders, get directions, send text messages directly with a voice command.
  • Find My Friends will be integrated with Assistant, and there will be privacy settings to control how you “can be found” when you’re online with your iOS device.
  • There is a “conversation view” to speak back and forth with the Assistant to confirm voice commands, and give further instructions like “send email to Mark’s work address”.

More details are available in the original article – such as Wolfram Alpha integration and the user interface design of Assistant.

Back in March, it was reported Siri would be “a big part” of Apple’s announcements at WWDC, but the company didn’t showcase any voice-related functionalities at its developer conference. That move would make sense if Assistant has been made exclusive to the new iPhone, which obviously didn’t get an announcement at WWDC either, and is currently rumored to be unveiled at Apple’s headquarters on October 4th. The voice recognition features of Siri were based on Nuance’s technology, which is also rumored to be in an agreement with Apple for the upcoming iOS 5. Previous iOS 5 betas revealed hidden functionalities (not enabled on existing hardware) related to “dictation”, a feature that, supposedly, would let users “speak text” they want to write on screen.

YouTube Testing New Mobile Layout

Following the Cosmic Panda experimental design launched in July, it appears YouTube is now testing an updated mobile layout that borrows some of the color schemes and interface elements of this summer’s refresh for desktop web browsers. The new mobile layout can be enabled at m.youtube.com/new_visual_design, and I’ve noticed this by opening the YouTube website from my iPhone (running the latest iOS 5 beta, but it works on iOS 4 too) earlier today. A quick Google and Twitter search seems to confirm that the new mobile layout is a recent change that, similarly to Cosmic Panda, is opt-in and needs to be manually activated.

Once enabled, the new design brings a much darker color palette that presents videos against dark toolbars and buttons – I assume this should make videos a little easier on the eye, but the effect is sort of ruined by Safari’s blue address bar. Unlike the standard mobile layout, launched last year, when saving this new design to the iPhone’s Home screen you won’t get a Retina-ready icon or full-screen web app. This, again, should be related to the experimental nature of the design.

The new mobile layout brings updated buttons and a new toolbar to toggle HQ on videos, give them a thumbs up/down, and share them. The HQ toggle comes with a neat fading animation and the video thumbnail has new loading and Play controls, too. Read more

October 4th Event To Be Held On Apple Campus

Apple’s Town Hall Auditorium during the Back to the Mac event, October 2010

John Paczkowski at AllThingsD follows-up on his earlier report of Apple’s next media event scheduled for October 4th, claiming that the keynote will be held on Apple Campus in Cupertino, rather than the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, as usual with Apple’s fall event. Details aren’t clear, but it’s possible Apple didn’t want to book a full date for the Yerba Buena Center as the keynote was too much of a “moving target”.

Perhaps, the company felt a more intimate venue was best for newly installed CEO Tim Cook’s first media event. Perhaps YBCA was simply already booked. Whatever the reason, the world will get it’s first look at the next iPhone at Apple’s Town Hall Auditorium in early October.

Apple’s Town Hall Auditorium has been used on several occasions to preview upcoming versions of iOS to the press. Last October, Apple held its “Back to the Mac” media event at Town Hall to preview the new version of OS X, Lion, iLife ‘11 and announce updated MacBook Air models.

Rumors surrounding Apple’s next iPhone model have claimed the company has been working on either a completely redesigned device, or a minor update unofficially dubbed “iPhone 4S”. Several sources previously reported the next iPhone would ship in mid-October on AT&T, Verizon and Sprint in the United States; it is widely believed the new device will come with Apple’s upcoming iOS update, iOS 5, pre-installed and ready to be configured with iCloud. AllThingsD also reports Apple’s new CEO, Tim Cook, will preside over the event.

Google+ for iOS Update: Mobile Hangouts, New Notification Settings, And More

A major update to the official Google+ app for iOS has been released on the App Store, and it adds the features mentioned by Google earlier this week when the service hit official “beta” status (open to everyone) after a limited field-trial period. As previously announced by Google, the mobile app for iOS now comes with Hangouts support – meaning that you’ll be able to join a Hangout directly from your iPhone or iPod touch. I haven’t been able to test this yet as none of my friends is currently streaming a Hangout session, so I can’t comment on the app’s performances with video yet. When covering the functionality for the Android app, however, Google wrote:

In life we connect with others in all sorts of places, at all different times. And the connections you make unexpectedly are often the ones you remember the most. We think Hangouts should keep pace with how you socialize in the real-world, so today we’re launching it on the one device that’s always by your side: your mobile phone. To get started, simply find an active hangout in the Stream, and tap “Join”.

The most notable change as you fire up the updated app is Huddle, which has been renamed to Messenger and now supports photos. You can easily attach photos from your Library or snap new ones within a Messenger thread, and Google claims there have been some reliability improvements as well.

Throughout the app, I’ve spotted several optimizations that should make the mobile Google+ experience more enjoyable. For one, granular controls on notification settings now allow you to selectively receive push notifications for mentions, shares, comments, or comments on a post after you commented. You can also be notified about new people circling you, and new tags or comments on photos. Considering iOS 5’s upcoming Notification Center functionality, these changes should make for an optimal experience when dealing with the incoming stream of notifications from Google+.

Other improvements in Google+ for iOS include the possibility to +1 comments, a map view in the profile for places you’ve lived, and a new feature to share posts with individuals only, instead of circles. Furthermore, Google mentions improvements to search in the changelog, and better support for +mentions (in the compose view, you’ll get a popup dialog to pick users, similar to Twitter).

The new Google+ update for iPhone feels like an important step forward in bringing the app up to parity with the website, as well as the mobile Android client. You can get it here on the App Store.

Update: I’ve run some first mobile Hangout tests, and performances seemed pretty reliably on my home network. Video quality was slightly worse than Apple’s FaceTime on the same connection, but it was a very slightly difference. What matters is that you’re able to join a Hangout directly from your stream as one of your friend starts it, and as you click “Join” you’ll be brought to a new dark screen that will load your camera view (front-facing by default), as well as your friend’s. There are notifications for new people joining a Hangout, and as multiple members join you can open a new screen to instantly add them to a circle.  There are buttons in a bottom toolbar to mute audio, freeze the camera, switch between front and rear-facing cameras, and leave the Hangout.

Overall, the process of joining a Hangout from my iPhone was pretty smooth, though on my friend’s end, she told me she was logged out at some time, and had to re-enter the Hangout. During those few seconds, I was left alone with a black screen as you can see in an image below. Hangouts on desktop web browsers have been recently enhanced with new features as you can read in Google’s blog post.

MacPaw Giveaway: Ensoul and Hider Codes Up for Grabs

It’s time for a new MacStories giveaway and this time we’re featuring MacPaw. We’re giving away 5 copies of MacPaw’s great Mac software, Ensoul and Hider. Ensoul lets you make bigger, better and more beautiful contact photos, make custom iPhone wallpapers from your iPhoto library, Photo Booth, Apeture or any folder on your Mac. It’s non-destructive, easy, and editing takes seconds to do. Hider is the cutting edge solution for hiding your private data on your Mac. If you’re concerned about privacy, Hider provides a user-friendly application that password-protects and hides all your personal files and folders; Hider can also organize them to keep your desktop uncluttered. It’s plugged into your Mac’s Finder and allows you to quickly hides files simply by using a contextual menu.

Be sure to check out the full feature lists of Ensoul and Hider on the MacPaw site. Ensoul ($9.99) and Hider ($9.99) can both be purchased from the Mac App Store. However if you are interested in winning one of the 5 copies of MacPaw’s popular apps that we are giving away, be sure to jump the break for all the details. Read more

WordPress 2.9 for iOS Gets New Text Editor, Fixes

WordPress has released an update to their iOS client earlier today, adding a number of features that have been requested since the original release of the blogging client for iPhone and iPad. I’ve been trying the latest WordPress, and while it’s still far from being the perfect app to write long articles on the go, the new features introduced in the latest update surely contribute to enhancing the overall experience.

For one, WordPress 2.9 has a refreshed text editor. It’s not the same visual editor you’d get on a self-hosted WordPress blog – it still forces you to write with visible HTML, then hit a button to preview text – but it’s got an additional keyboard row both on the iPhone and iPad with buttons for bold and italic text, adding links, quotes and strikethroughs, bulleted lists, and more. The app is pretty smart in that text will be automatically wrapped between HTML tags both when you hit the buttons as you type, or manually select text afterwards. I’d like to see the possibility of manually arranging and customizing the extra keyboard row in a future update, but there’s no doubt the feature gets the job done for now.

Editing is done in a pop-up window on the iPad (my main writing machine when I’m on the go), with buttons along the bottom to switch between HTML, settings, preview, and attach media. Whereas the iPad app lets you switch between modes with the tap of a button, on the iPhone you’ll have to hit “Done” to go back to the previous view (with settings, title, categories, etc.).

WordPress mentions two more features in the iTunes changelog:

Full Screen Editing. No more teeny-weeny content editor — now you can view more text at a time while you post on the go.

Reading Made Easy. Keeping track of your favorite blogs has never been easier. Browse all the latest posts on blogs you follow in one place, right from your iPhone.

WordPress 2.9 comes with three minor fixes as well, which include posting pictures that you’ve already taken with Quick Photo (introduced in version 2.8), and stats/referrer links that can be opened in-app. In a post on the WordPress for iOS blog, the developers explain the new “Read” feature:

If you have one or more WordPress.com blogs in your WordPress for iOS app you’ll now see a Read button in the blogs list. This is the fastest way to keep up with posts from blogs you’re following on WordPress.com. Here’s how it works: if you go to any WordPress.com blog and click the Follow button, you’ll not only get email notifications about new posts from that blog, they’ll also show up right in the app!

WordPress 2.9 is an interesting update, one that I’m sure will get more writers to consider the iOS app as a feasible alternative when a laptop is not available. I’m definitely looking forward to version 3.0, which is going to be the “biggest update to the WordPress for iOS app since its birth”.

Download WordPress for iOS here.

QuickCal 3.0 Gets Redesigned UI and BusyCal Support

Back in May I reviewed QuickCal for Mac, an iCal add-on that, through a very straightforward interface, allowed you to create new events in iCal using “natural language input”. With a combination of keyboard shortcuts and direct iCal integration, QuickCal let you write down events in plain English (example: Lunch with Cody tomorrow at Italian restaurant), and have them automatically formatted as new entries in iCal, which would then sync them to a MobileMe or online service of choice. Alternatively, QuickCal also featured native Google Calendar support, so events didn’t have to go through iCal first to be synced online. With a clean menubar list of upcoming events, support for to-dos and smart reminders, I was quite impressed by QuickCal as an iCal add-on for desktop users.

With the 3.0 update released today, QuickCal adds a completely redesigned UI, a new dynamic dock icon, and a series of improvements throughout the interface. As with the previous version, QuickCal can be invoked by pressing a keyboard shortcut (mine is Control+Shift+Q), which will open a floating panel (think OmniFocus’ quick entry/Alfred/NotifyMe) to start writing down a future event. Focus is immediately placed on the text cursor; the new QuickCal entry box design is nice to look at, and it retains the underlying simplicity of the older versions. As you type, text is automatically formatted to reflect an event’s data points like date, location, and duration. For instance, “Meet with Chris at Apple Store, Viterbo tomorrow from 5 to 6” will result in an event called “Meet with Cris”, with location, date and duration fields automatically filled in. This hasn’t changed from the old QuickCal.

QuickCal 3.0 has a beautiful dock icon with a dynamic date on it (like iCal), although unfortunately, due to Apple’s rules with menubar apps and Lion, you’ll have to manually drag it from Launchpad or the Applications folder onto your dock if you want to see it. Once it’s there, you’ll be able to click on it to open the quick entry panel, and drop text on it as well. If you don’t want to use QuickCal’s own quick entry box, you can make its natural language input work with popular application launchers such as Alfred and LaunchBar.

Other features of QuickCal 2.0 have been maintained and refined in this 3.0 release. The app can still create to-dos in a specific calendar with the “todo” prefix – this works nicely with iCal’s Reminders in Lion. QuickCal also provides a summary of upcoming events and to-dos in the menubar, and you can play around with the app’s preferences to tweak sorting options, days to show, and completed events. You can set a default calendar for new events and to-dos, enable Google Calendar sync in the second tab of the Preferences, and, as with version 2.0, activate automatic conflict resolution, so the app will turn red if you’re creating an event that’s overlapping an existing one.

One of my favorite features of QuickCal 2.0 has been ported over to 3.0, and that’s Smart Reminders. With this functionality, you can set the app to automatically apply certain alarms for events that are a day, week, or month away. This way you’ll always have a reminder available and different depending on the kind of event you’re assigning it to.

QuickCal 3.0 comes with native BusyCal support, but I haven’t been able to test this. I’ve only tested the app with MobileMe and iCloud calendars, and I’ve noticed QuickCal still isn’t completely independent from Apple’s iCal in that it requires iCal to be open to sync events to the cloud. With iCal closed but QuickCal running, new events will be saved in QuickCal, but they’ll only be synced after you launch iCal. Another app with natural language input for events, Fantastical, comes at a higher price on the App Store ($14.99), but it syncs events immediately to the cloud thanks to native CalDAV sync support.

QuickCal 3.0 is a simple and effective companion for iCal, now with a nicer UI. I prefer to call the app an add-on, rather than a mini-calendar replacement, as it requires iCal to be open to sync events to iCloud/MobileMe, and it can’t live on its own unless you’re a Google Calendar user. Natural language input is certainly more reliable than iCal’s in Lion, and the interface is unobtrusive enough to be there to assist you, but get out of the way as you don’t need it. If you’re an iCal user and you’re looking for a quicker way to enter events in plain English, QuickCal is only $2.99 on the App Store (a free 14-day trial is available on QuickCal’s website).
Read more

Support for Quad-Core ARM CPUs Found in Xcode

As reported by Chris Foreman at Ars Technica, code strings related to Marvell’s ARM-based quad-core CPUs have been found in the latest source code of Clang, Apple’s compiler for Xcode. Specifically, Ars Technica notes Clang shows support for Marvell’s Armada XP processor with an “undefined” open source flag, suggesting that only Apple can internally build code targeted towards such CPU.

A developer who works on low-level ARM assembly coding for security products was the first to alert Ars that support had been added for Armada’s Cortex A9-compatible processors in the latest version of Xcode (a claim that we later confirmed first-hand). The source code for a part of Clang that interprets what CPU type is being targeted for optimization includes a definition for an architecture type of “armv7k” and CPU type “pj4b”. PJ4B is a specially optimized CPU design used in Marvell’s quad-core Armada XP embedded processors. Source code available from the LLVM project, including Apple-specific branches, doesn’t contain any reference to the Marvell design.

There are a number of reasons why Apple would like to test support for ARM-based quad-core CPUs. First is low-power consumption, a characteristic of ARM architectures that has allowed Apple to build mobile devices with amazing battery life. Second is performance – just like the dual-core A5 provides faster graphics and performances than the first-gen A4, it wouldn’t be a surprise to know Apple is testing quad-core processors for the next generation of phones and tablets. On the other hand, the MacBook Airs were rumored earlier this year to be considered as the first Mac model to switch to ARM (again, the rumors mentioned battery life, extreme portability, and other often-quoted ARM advantages), although such transition would require developers to update their OS X applications to work with ARM, possibly only on MacBook Airs to start with. Many doubt Apple will switch Macs to ARM in the short term, especially considering Intel’s upcoming Ivi Bridge and Haswell processors (supposed to tackle the battery life and power consumption issues).

It’s interesting to note, however, that Apple is at least testing ARM-based quad-core CPUs internally, and that these references have made it into Clang’s source code.