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iOS 5 To Bring FaceTime on 3G? Better Video Quality?

9to5mac has posted a screenshot passed along by a reader, in which iOS 5 shows an alert box asking the user to turn on cellular data or WiFi to use FaceTime. By playing around with the iOS 5 preferences in Settings->General->Network, we’ve found how to replicate the “issue”: turn off Cellular Data in the Network tab, open FaceTime’s prefs inside the Settings app, and you should get the alert box. If it doesn’t come up, try to turn FaceTime off and on again, making sure Cellular Data is still set to off. iOS 5 will tell you that you need data (3G) or WiFi to use FaceTime.

This could be big news for iPhone and iPad owners as FaceTime is currently restricted to WiFi networks, with many obviously speculating that the carriers forced Apple to make FaceTime available only on faster WiFi connections. On the other hand though, it needs to be mentioned that the jailbreak tweaks that enabled FaceTime on 3G on iOS 4.3 proved that, with less than optimal 3G speeds, FaceTime could be pretty terrible without WiFi.

However, there’s one last piece to consider: at the WWDC ‘11 keynote, a slide showed by Scott Forstall on stage briefly hinted at improved video quality coming in FaceTime on iOS 5, alongside mid-call invitation alerts. See the image from This Is My Next’s liveblog:

Whether this means iOS 5 will finally bring the possibility to video call on the go it’s unclear at this point, and there’s a very good chance the alert box above is simply an iOS bug from the first beta. Or, Apple could be really working closely with selected carriers to enable FaceTime on 3G, at no additional costs.

iPhone 4 Ousts BlackBerry For Top Spot→

IPhone 4 Dethrones BlackBerry for Top Spot

Despite RIM’s gradual slide in market share as Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android platforms grow, the company still has three of the top ten models. The 9700, meanwhile, plunged to sixth – the first time in two years that RIM didn’t have a model in the top three, suggesting that it needs to get its next-generation of QNX-based handsets out the door sooner rather than later to stop the bleeding.

RIM’s top selling BlackBerry has now fallen to the iPhone 4, according to a report from Strategy Analytics. The iPhone 4 has sold the most smartphones in the first quarter of 2011, surprisingly followed by Nokia’s N8. Nokia also has two other phones competing in the top ten. The iPhone is available through 200 carriers worldwide, and iOS has captivated 44% of the mobile market, while RIM holds on to 19%.

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Introducing Evernote Peek: An App that Helps you Study with Apple’s Smart Cover

“What’s the best Apple blog on the Internet?” Hopefully “MacStories” is the answer to be revealed by Apple’s Smart Cover, via an app that’s from the same folks who help translate business cards to text and take notes on the fly. Evernote Peek is a brand new app that’s now available for free on the App Store. As a study aid designed specifically around Apple’s Smart Cover, Evernote Peek integrates with your Evernote account: create a new notebook with a subject title, with note titles as the question and note bodies as the answer. Evernote peek is designed to help you strengthen your memory, retain information, all while utilizing the best accessory for your iPad. As you answer questions, Evernote Peek will keep score of the questions you got right and wrong, and you can even add in images for visual aids. Since closing the iPad lid will lock the iPad, Evernote recommends the following.

There are two quick iPad adjustments that we recommend. First, turn up your iPad brightness to about 75%. Second, turn off your iPad’s auto-lock. Now, start studying.

While not completely magic, the idea behind Evernote Peek is pretty great. No more holding your hand over a study sheet or wasting index cards – the iPad’s Smart Cover reveals clues then unfolds as you answer the question. Past the break, we have a quick promotional video of Evernote Peek in action – we think it’s pretty great. When you’re done watching the vid, you can download it here.

[TechCrunch via Evernote Blog]

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Apple Among World’s Most Reputable Companies According To Customers

In a survey of 48,000 consumers across 15 countries, the Reputation Institute named Google, Apple, Disney, BMW, and LEGO as the world’s most reputable companies overall. While I am a little astonished that Google made the top of the list, no one can argue that Google’s search engine is the front and center when we load up web browsers or open new tabs. However, while Apple and Disney were among the most reputable overall, it was Kelloggs that was the clear favorite in the United States, and LEGO took the crown in Europe. Speaking on company excellence, Reputation Institute Executive Partner Nicolas Georges Trad says,

“To build a strong reputation on a global level requires a broad platform that covers all seven dimensions of reputation, including Products & Services, Innovation, Workplace, Governance, Citizenship, Leadership, and Performance.”

Reputation is important for these companies not just for bragging rights, but because being reputable pays off in a big way. Companies with a strong reputation, on average, receive three times the support of less reputable competition. The loyal customer base is more willing to stand-by the brands the associate themselves with, spend more, and say good things about those products. As said by Reputation Institute Chairman, Dr. Charles Fombrun,

The greater the reputation of a company, the more support it earns from consumers, the better its operating performance, and the more money investors are willing to pay for its shares.

Below, we’ve highlighted the top ten overall most reputable brands below. Google edged out Apple (who are neck-and-neck), and Microsoft just missed the list in the 11th spot.

  1. Google
  2. Apple
  3. The Walt Disney Company
  4. BMW
  5. LEGO
  6. Sony
  7. Daimler
  8. Canon
  9. Intel
  10. Volkswagon

The Reputation Institute measures company reputation via a RepTrak Pulse statistic, and looked at over one hundred different companies before reaching their conclusion. Fore more information, check out the source link below.

[via PRNewswire]

Flare for Mac Updated to 1.1 with Many New Features

Back in March when Flare first came out, we said that it “has a fast learning curve, looks great and makes adding effects as simple or complicated as you want.” Version 1.1 was just released and adds even more options to your user experience.

Version 1.1 adds six spanking new presets, including “Daguerreotype”; if you know anything about the history of photography, you’ve heard of this photographic processes from the 1800s. There are many new effects to Flare such as new borders, lightleaks, and more to make your own custom presets for your photos. The Flare blog has more information about all the new effects and presets in 1.1.

Flare is on sale for $9.99 (reg. $19.99) on the Mac App Store, if you want to try it before you buy it, go the Flare website for a free demo. The only limitations to the demo version is that it limits the size of the photo you can work with to something quite small. The registered version and the MAS version have no such limitation.

Outside of intense photo editors such as Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom, Flare is one of the best photo editors for the Mac, and so much easier to use too!

Full release notes can be found here.

Lion Boots From SD Card, Has New OS X Utilities Screen

Following a report from earlier this week that suggested it could be possible to burn OS X Lion to a DVD and install it from a Mac’s disc drive, a new video surfaced on YouTube shows that, by grabbing the .DMG  file inside the OS X Lion Installer app from the Mac App Store, users could be able to boot OS X Lion off an SD Card and choose from a new set of options after the system restarts. The new Mac OS X Utilities window, which appears at the end of the video, contains options to fire up Disk Utility to repair and erase partitions, possibility to restore from a Time Machine backup (Time Machine has been improved in Lion) and a standard “Reinstall” action to perform a Lion installation. The window also shows a link to “get online support” by browsing Apple’s online documentation.

Nature’s Eye Studios writes in an email to us:

Enabling Lion on an SD card was actually verry easy, easier than I expect it to be…

After downloading Lion from the Apple Developer site, you get a 4 GB DMG file, so the next step was to open up Disk Utility and erase an 8GB SDCX card (XC for the speed) After which I just had click the repair option in Disk Utility. Now select the Lion DMG as source and drag the SD card as destination. After about 10 minutes, the SD card was the Lion ESD installer. Then it was even easier: you just have to start the installation, and follow the on screen instructions.

To erase the hard drive or restore from a Time Machine backup, you have to boot from the installer; to do so, you have to turn off your Mac and turn it back on while holding Option (alt). When it powers up, you can choose from what drive to boot, you have your Macintosh HD and a Lion specific partition of your hard drive and then you have a USB device, which is actually your SD card. Follow the on screen instructions, and you’re able to erase your hard drive, and put everything back from a Time Machine backup.

Assuming the author of the video has followed the same method detailed by TUAW, the process should be fairly easy and useful to keep a portable copy of Lion that doesn’t live in your file system. Apple has announced at the WWDC keynote that Lion will be distributed only on the Mac App Store at $29.99, as opposite to previous speculation that claimed the company would also offer DVDs and portable USB drives for Lion. It’s unlikely Apple will publish documents to explain to users how to keep a physical copy of Lion (which involves opening the Installer package and finding a DMG file in the Contents folder), still it’s interesting to know there will be the possibility to do everything from Disk Utility as Lion’s Installer is nothing but a wrapper. Check out the video below. Read more

iOS 5: 8 Other Features We Love

Since Apple’s official presentation of iOS 5 at the WWDC keynote on Monday and the release of the first beta to developers, lots of things have been said about Apple’s new modus operandi based on watching the community, seeing what developers and jailbreakers are building to improve the OS and answer the needs of hardcore iOS users, and going back to the drawing board to take inspiration from what the ecosystem has created to offer a native solution, designed from Apple, in most cases better than the competition or third-party solutions. If you followed our keynote coverage and WWDC ‘11 roundup, you know what’s new in iOS 5 and what we’re referring to: the new notification system is heavily inspired by jailbreak tweaks like LockInfo and Mobile Notifier (which were inspired by Android’s notifications); the new Reminders app will likely eliminate the need of simple to-do list application from the App Store (but not complex GTD software like OmniFocus); the iMessage solution built by Apple sounds like RIM’s BlackBerry Messenger, it’s exclusive to iOS 5 users and keeps your messages in sync with iCloud.

With hundreds of new features, there’s a lot to discover in iOS 5, and more will come with future betas and the final release this Fall, we’re sure. The way I see it, Apple didn’t “kill” anything as several pundits are claiming: it’s called progress. Whilst the term “killing” implies a voluntary action of willing to do something against someone, with iOS 5 Apple doesn’t want to “kill” Remember the Milk, Dropbox, or Boxcar. Apple sees where the platform is going and skates to where to puck is going to be. I agree with our editor Cody when he says it’s not really about copying, as much as it’s about improving existing solutions to provide a better experience for everyone. Nothing’s really new nowadays, but there’s still room for innovation. It’s a subtle difference.

So with iOS 5, we have lots of innovations, new features, improvements, and all of the above. You’ve probably already read everything about the most important functionalities in our roundup, so here’s what we’re going to do next: rather than assembling a list of every single screenshot of what’s new in iOS 5 beta 1, we’ve collected the 10 best new things (some of which you may not have seen yet) we’ve found in iOS 5 beta. Read more

Free Upgrade to Lion with a New Mac Purchase

If you’re in the market for a new Mac, you’ll be eligible for a free upgrade to Lion once it hits the Mac App Store in July, thanks to Apple’s Up-To-Date program which keeps new customers on top of the latest technology. From the OS X Lion press release:

The Mac OS X Lion Up-To-Date upgrade is available at no additional charge via the Mac App Store to all customers who purchased a qualifying new Mac system from Apple or an Apple Authorized Reseller on or after June 6, 2011. Users must request their Up-To-Date upgrade within 30 days of purchase of their Mac computer. Customers who purchase a qualifying Mac between June 6, 2011 and the date when Lion is available in the Mac App Store will have 30 days from Lions official release date to make a request.

As MacRumors points out, you originally had to pay $9.95 for the installation DVD. However, as Lion is a download from the Mac App Store, there’s no longer going to be a charge to make up for packaging and shipping. Once Lion hits in July, you’ll have thirty days to request your free download through the program.

With new MacBook Airs around the corner, however, you might just want to wait to buy a shiny new Mac with Lion already installed.

[via MacRumors, OS X Lion Press Release]