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Amazon Releases Impressive Kindle Cloud Reader Web App, Sidesteps In-App Purchase Rules

Over the past six months there has been a (fairly) quiet tussle between Apple and various publishers and other content suppliers over the issue of In-App Purchases and Subscriptions. At the beginning of the year Apple had demanded that by July, all content available within an app must be available for purchase within the app through In-App Purchasing, for the same price as it was available on the publishers website (say the Kindle online store) and that the app did not link to the website for purchases but used the In-App Purchase system. Apple reversed their policy in May, removing the first two restrictions — but still denied publishers from including a ‘Buy’ link that went to a website and then finally late last month various publishers began to abide by these rules, including the Wall Street Journal, Kobo and the Kindle apps.

This obviously isn’t the best situation for consumers and as many have noted, including Dan Frommer of SplatF, it has made purchasing Kindle books more difficult for the user - despite the premise of In-App Purchases aiming to simplify purchases. Consequently, Amazon today released the Kindle Cloud Reader, a web app for Chrome, Safari and the iPad - with support for other browsers and devices promised soon.

The desktop version of the Kindle Cloud Reader is nice, but it is the iPad version that is most intriguing and impressive. It is a web app but it does an excellent job at masquerading as a native app — particularly features such as offline support and menus that hide/reappear when you tap the screen. It starts from when you first load the Kindle Cloud Reader and it asks permission to reserve 50 MB on your device so that it can store all the necessary elements of the ‘app’ and your books to ensure that when you have no 3G or Wi-Fi connectivity, everything continues to work. To really see how well it does at pretending to be a native app, try it yourself or jump the break for more screenshot’s of the Kindle Cloud Reader — pinning it to the Home Screen as a web app (which it dutifully suggests you do) in particular just amplifies the native app feel by removing the browser chrome.

What Amazon has done by creating this web app reminds me of the Financial Times, which also created a web app for delivering their content to users and subscribers after they also felt Apple’s terms were too restrictive and negative. Unlike the Financial Times, Amazon has not removed their iOS app from the App Store — it remains, albeit hampered by the lack of easy access to the Kindle Store. On the Kindle Cloud Reader however, the Kindle Store works great with a link in the top-right corner and it is made better by the fact that the store has also received an iPad-enhanced design and works much better whilst also looking great.

You can access the Kindle Cloud Reader now, simply by logging in to your Amazon account - all your purchased books will already be there.

[Via TechCrunch]

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Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 Blocked By Apple in the European Union

With the exception of the Netherlands, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 has been barred from distribution in the European Union after being awarded a preliminary injunction (a separate lawsuit in the Netherlands is already underway). After a district court in Dusseldorf, Germany, granted the injunction, Apple spokesperson Kristin Huguet confirmed the injunction to Bloomberg. “It’s no coincidence that Samsung’s latest products look a lot like the iPhone and iPad, from the shape of the hardware to the user interface and even the packaging.” This comes shortly after the Galaxy Tab 10.1 launch was delayed in Australia after Apple pressured Samsung as they requested a preliminary injunction in that country. According to FOSS Patents:

Apple asked the Landgericht (district court) of Düsseldorf, Germany, to order an injunction under which Samsung is threatened with fines of up to EUR 250,000 (US$ 350,000) for each violation or imprisonment of Samsung’s management for up to two years in the event of continued infringement. Those are standard sanctions under German tort law for contempt of a preliminary injunction.

Huguet continued, “This kind of blatant copying is wrong, and we need to protect Apple’s intellectual property when companies steal our ideas.” Florian Mueller over at FOSS Patents writes, “The Düsseldorf district court has a reputation for being our equivalent of the Eastern District of Texas in terms of a strong tendency to favor the interests of right holders over those of alleged infringers.” Apple and Samsung will have a court hearing in Northern California in mid-october.

[via Bloomberg, FOSS Patents, DPA]

Preview of Elements 2.0: Revamped Interface and Web Publishing

Last August we previewed Second Gear’s Elements 1.0, a Dropbox based text editor for iOS. Since then it has seen a few updates such as an improved UI, sub-folders, Markdown preview and improved file saving - that’s a lot of great improvements from 1.0 to 1.5. Elements is bar none one of the best Dropbox text editors available. Are you ready for a little preview of what Second Gear has in store for Elements 2.0? Read more

Introducing Facebook Messenger for iPhone

Facebook posits that it’s hard for us to know when our friends are available at home or on their mobile phones, and that choosing how we want to communicate can be confusing: do we send a text message, an email, or do we try to connect to our friends on Twitter? Facebook has already positioned themselves to be a central hub for communication — you have the choice to choose how you want to talk to your friends on Facebook (through your preferred medium). To make things simpler, Facebook is rolling out Facebook Messenger for iPhone, a separate app with a great icon and streamlined interface for instantly connecting to your friends. We’ll be updating past the break shortly with screenshots, impressions, and more information, but in the meantime you can download the app via the link below.

Facebook Messenger for iPhone

[via TechCrunch]

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Apple surpasses Exxon Mobil as most valuable company in the world→

Apple surpasses Exxon Mobil as most valuable company in the world

Matthew Panzarino writing for The Next Web,

Apple has, at least for the moment, taken the place of Exxon Mobil as the most valuable company in the world, measured by market cap, reports MacRumors. Apple’s market cap hit $341.55 billion in valuation today, while Exxon Mobil was valued at $341.42 billion.

[…]

Apple’s record high of $404 per share was hit just last week, although it has fallen 8% to 368.40. ExxonMobil took a deeper hit, falling 20% to $70.21 allowing Apple to creep ahead.

Apple is having a great day, up 4% while Exxon’s growth remains stagnant. While both companies have taken hits thanks to the stock markets being down after the S&P downgrade, this is the first time Apple has been ranked as the most valuable public company in the world, even if for just a moment.

Update: Great quote from John Paczkowski at All Things D:

Incidentally, at $341.5 billion, Apple’s market cap is more than twelve times that of Dell’s $26.54 billion, which is highly ironic considering Michael Dell’s infamous suggestion for the company: “What would I do [with Apple]? I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.”

Update 2:  Mark Gongloff from the WSJ:

Exxon Mobil ended the day with the crown, at $348 billion in market cap. Apple ended at $346.7 billion.

(image via MacRumors)

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Twitterrific 4.3 Syncs Timeline Position With Tweet Marker

Twitterrific 4.3 is now available on the iOS App Store and on the Mac App Store, featuring timeline sync via Tweet Marker. Tweet Marker is a service that enables developers to remember where you stopped reading your timeline on one device, so you can start where you left off on another. If you value reading every tweet (and not just what’s happening right now), Tweet Marker gives Twitterrific tremendous value. There’s virtually very little users have to do on their end to enable Tweet Marker, but we’ll break down all the juicy details pertaining the purple bookmark past the break.

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Toggle Mac OS X 10.7 Lion New Features On / Off With Lion Tweaks→

Toggle Mac OS X 10.7 Lion New Features On / Off With Lion Tweaks

The latest Mac OS X 10.7 brings a whole lot of improvements along with a dozen iPad inspired UI features and animations. Although these improvements don’t come into conflict with UI design and core features of Mac Snow Leopard, many users hate the idea of bringing the iPad like UI elements and animations to Mac OS X. If you’re amongst those who want to keep Mac OS X 10.7 installed on your system but also want to toggle some of its new features, window options and animations on/off, Lion Tweaks is probably the best Mac Lion tweaking application that you can try.

We’ve posted lots of tips and tricks that require a bit of elbow grease when it comes to taking control of Lion, and we’ve even posted utilities like this one for Launchpad for hiding unwanted folders or apps. With everyone wanting to disable this or modify that, why not just create a utility that puts everything you’d want in one place? AddictiveTips has posted a utility from iFredrik that’ll have you customizing Lion with nothing more than a couple of button presses. For those of you who are fed up with slow window animations or that iCal leather, you can disable it with a simple click thanks to Lion Tweaks.

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eBay Launches a Minimal App Designed for OS X

Tired of logging in on eBay just to get a sweet deal on that gadget you’ve been eyeballing? Check it out — eBay has a shiny new app on the Mac App Store that shares visual similarities with apps like Sparrow or Twitter for Mac, and is designed so you can bid on products right from the comfort of your desktop. The lightweight eBay companion for the Mac is very nice — you can keep track of your watched items, your bidding history, make bids, search for auctions, and do everything in the Mac app you’d generally want to do online. With access to your eBay console, daily deals, and a universal search bar built right in to such a compact interface, it’s a pretty sweet replacement for the website (and much easier to navigate). You can download eBay for the Mac in the Mac App Store, and we’ve posted some screenshots after the break so you can further check it out.

Update: Hearing reports on Twitter (and a comfirmation over at Macgasm) that this appears to be US only for right now.

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