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Amazon Kindle App Complies With Apple’s Rules: Drops Kindle Store Button

The Amazon Kindle app has been updated in the App Store, and subsequently has removed the button linking to their Kindle Store in complying with Apple’s rules for termination (with the ultimate deadline being set at June 30th). Apps offering subscriptions must use in-app-purchasing, and all links to external stores must be removed. The Wall Street Journal and Kobo are also among some of the companies complying at the last minute with the rules pending the upcoming deadline.

Amazon didn’t just update their Kindle app to comply with Apple’s terms of service, however, adding the capability to deliver newspaper and magazine subscriptions to your iPad or iPhone, and download recent editions from the Archived Items section of their app. Amazon is seemingly skirting around subscriptions by making customers push new issues to their devices via the Kindle Store on the web, but automatic delivery makes us wonder whether this infringes on IAP rules.

A second addition brings the ability to highlight text and share quotes or passages with friends on Facebook or Twitter. I’ve never been so enamored to share text of a book I’m reading with my compatriots on either social network, but you bookworms have no more excuses for not showing up to your weekly book club discussion.

Nuance Releases Dragon Dictate 2.5, Adds Word 2011 And iPhone As Microphone Support

Nuance has today released an upgrade to their Mac-based dictation software, Dragon Dictation 2.5. The new version focuses on refining features and adding minor features that will make dictation tasks simpler. A big feature addition is support for dictation in Microsoft Word 2011, which also allows users to seamlessly mix typing and dictation. Also new is the ability to use the iPhone as an input microphone for Dragon Dictate using the Dragon Remote Microphone app that was recently released for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Also new are Facebook and Twitter commands which will allow users to easily post tweets or create a status update in Facebook by saying “Tweet [speak text]” and “Post to Facebook [speak] text” or a similar command. As Peter Mahoney of Nuance explains, they heard requests for “more flexibility” and responded with more formatting controls which allow users to have more control over how data such as dates are formatted and how abbreviations are used. Users can also delete entries from the Dragon dictionary if it conflicts with other words and there is now a dedicated numbers mode which only dictates numbers and commands – helpful for database entry.

The Dragon Dictate 2.5 update is free for all users of the Dragon Dictate 2.0 version, whilst new users can purchase the new version now for $179.99. Jump the break for Nuance’s full press release.

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Lion’s QuickTime Player: Screen Recording Improvements and New Sharing Features

One of the built-in apps that received several interesting improvements in OS X Lion is QuickTime Player, Apple’s default video and music player based on the QuickTime framework that’s capable of handling a variety of audio, video, and picture codecs. Seemingly unchanged from version 10 of QuickTime Player that shipped with Mac OS X Snow Leopard, the new QuickTime Player 10.1 contains a number of changes under the hood, new sharing features, as well as screen recording enhancements built specifically for OS X Lion. Read more

Facebook Has A Working iPad App Hidden In The iPhone Version

As revealed by TechCrunch, it appears the official Facebook app for iPad may become available in the App Store relatively soon, as the iPad app is actually hidden away, inside the iPhone app and actually executable! It is unclear when and how Facebook will announce the availability of Facebook for iPad, however as MG Siegler explains, it is a completely re-imagined Facebook experience for the tablet that takes advantage of the iPad’s screen to lay out a different view for your photo albums, friends, profile, and more. The app does seem to use an iPad optimized web view in the main Facebook interface (just like on the iPhone), but several other UI elements are native to iOS and built specifically for the iPad.

Facebook for iPad uses a concept not too dissimilar from Twitter’s iPad app – rather than displaying all content vertically, the app heavily relies on horizontal navigation to access various Facebook sections, the news feed, chats, liked posts, and so forth. For instance, a sidebar on the left contains tabs below your main profile to open your News Feed, Messages, Events, Places, Friends, and Photos. In the same sidebar, there are links to jump to the groups you’re subscribed to – it almost appears as Facebook wants to put the focus on Groups as much as Google gave Circles, its friend-organization tool, a huge role in Google+. There are two top bars in the middle panel: one has buttons to upload photos from your iPad’s camera and library, the other two are associated with a regular status update and check-ins. In the blue toolbar, the app has a series of additional icons to open the friend requests panel, messages, and notifications – this looks very similar to Facebook on the desktop, and the design is very distant from Facebook’s implementation on the iPhone. There is also a search function in the app, though it’s been placed at the top of the sidebar, rather than the toolbar. As for the stream, judging from the screenshots it seems to be a web view optimized for the iPad’s new app UI.

Facebook for iPad includes a Chat sidebar on the right and a full interface for Messages, which look very similar to Apple’s own iMessage model – at least as far as the design goes – with recipients listed on the left and the actual message inside a larger panel on the right.

UPDATE: TechCrunch has posted an album-full of screenshots of the app here. We’ve embedded a sample of these below the break, but here’s one:

[Via TechCrunch]

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Wall Street Journal And Kobo Fall Into Line, Will Remove Purchase Links To Content Outside The App Store

It appears that Apple has finally decided to start forcing apps to abide by its new in-app purchase and subscription rules that became enforceable at the start of this month. It appears that the first big casualties will be the Wall Street Journal and Kobo apps. The Wall Street Journal has reported that their apps will soon remove all purchasing options from their apps and Kobo, the Canadian e-Book retailer, has already done something similar. Both apps had been linking users to their website to purchase subscription content which had been forbidden in Apple’s new rules, as detailed below.

Apps that link to external mechanisms for purchasing content to be used in the app, such as a “buy” button that goes to a web site to purchase a digital book, will be rejected.

Neither app has or had been rejected, instead Apple seems to have opted to talk directly with Kobo and News Corporation, as both have or will soon be updating their apps to remove the offending links. Curiously both apps will not be using Apple’s own in-app purchasing system to allow users to purchase content or subscriptions. Both firms still feel as though the terms are too onerous, despite Apple relaxing the restrictions in June to allow content to be sold through the in-app purchasing at a different price. Previously the rules were going to require all subscription content to be available for purchase through the in-app system and at the same or lower price (despite Apple’s required 30% cut).

Kobo’s Mr. Serbinis said to the Wall Street Journal that roughly 50% of their iOS app users already bought content through their website, but that this change “will inconvenience those customers accustomed to buying their books directly from our apps on Apple devices”. Similarly, a News Corp spokeswoman said “We remain concerned that Apple’s own subscription [rules] would create a poor experience for our readers, who would not be able to directly manage their WSJ account or to easily access our content across multiple platforms”. Both companies seem reluctant to offer in-app purchases and cede 30% of revenues to Apple, despite even being allowed to charge customers more if purchasing in this method. It follows other publishers such as The New York Times and various Conde Naste magazines, which have embraced Apple’s in-app subscriptions and purchases.

[Via The Wall Street Journal]

Apple Posts New iPad 2 Commercial: “We’ll Always”

We’ll never stop sharing our memories. Or getting lost in a good book. We’ll always cook dinner, and cheer for our favorite team. We’ll still go to meetings, make home movies, and learn new things. But how do all this, we’ll never be the same.

Apple posted a new iPad 2 commercial on its website and YouTube channel, once again highlighting how the device is changing the way people do things in their lives. With the “We’ll always” ad, Apple wants to show how the iPad has changed, and perhaps improved, the most basic tasks like cooking dinner or editing a quick video in iMovie. Just like other commercials like “Now” and “If You Asked”, Apple’s focus is on apps – the software – rather than technical specifications and hardware features. In this latest video, the iPad is seen organizing photos in the native Photos app, streaming a baseball match and flipping pages of an iBook – among other things. The built-in iOS and the apps – not the screen or the thin form factor – are the real stars in Apple’s iPad commercials.

Apple’s previous iPad 2 commercials were called “We Believe”, “If You Asked” and “Now”. Check out the new video below. [YouTube via 9to5mac]
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OS X Lion 10.7.2 Shows Up On Dev Center

As first noted by BGR, a link to download OS X Lion version 10.7.2 has briefly appeared in the iCloud section of the Developer Center, which is unaccessible at the moment of writing this. However, a screen taken by BGR confirms that Apple – it’s not clear whether mistakenly or not – inserted a link to download a new developer seed of Lion, which was publicly released earlier this week on the Mac App Store.

According to Apple, this new version of Lion “is being provided solely for testing iCloud”, which has received an update to beta 5 today as a standalone control panel to install on OS X. iCloud is due this Fall as announced by Apple at WWDC in June. It is unclear whether this build of Lion for iCloud testing will be released alongside iCloud later this year, but considering Lion has yet to see a maintenance update to version 10.7.1, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see 10.7.2 scheduled for launch when iCloud is ready, too.

Since the launch of new hardware last Wednesday, it was noted the new MacBook Airs carried a different OS X Lion build number, version 11A2063.

Apple to open Apple Store in Grand Central Terminal

The last time we heard evidence of a Grand Central Apple Store was back in May, when the Wall Street Journal reported that the Metropolitan Transport Authority (MTA) was contacted by Apple who was interested in retail space. Today, according to the New York Post, Apple will open a 23,000 square-foot store in the terminal’s north and northeast balconies. Affected is the Metrazeur restaurant, bought out in the apparent deal. Apple’s rent will initially cost $800,000 for the retail space during a ten-year lease.

It should be noted that the deal isn’t finalized yet: the MTA still has to ask their financial committee to approve the deal on Monday before receiving a final okay from the board of directors on Wednesday. With the deal likely to rake in $5 million in profits (at minimum), and with the renter being Apple, the MTA is undoubtedly going to vote “yes”. I don’t think there’s any question there.

[via NY Post]

Apple Releases iOS 5 Beta 4

 

Apple just seeded iOS 5 beta 4 to developers. The new build, carrying number 9A5274d, is available now in the Dev Center. iOS 5 beta 3 was seeded to developers on July 11, introducing a series of tweaks to Location Services and several optimizations to the underlying code of the OS, which resulted much snappier and more responsive than previous betas. However, some developers reported that bugs with Notification Center found in iOS 5 beta 1 were still not fixed in beta 3. iOS 5 will ship in the fall, as announced by Apple at WWDC.

We’ll update this story with more information and details as they become available. Read more