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iOS 5 Internal Settings Show Possible Nuance Integration

The Chronic Wire got its hands on a build of iOS 5 running Apple internal settings and posted a series interesting screenshots throughout the day detailing some of the features that are enabled for Apple employees and developers for testing and troubleshooting, but aren’t visible in the beta build of iOS 5 seeded to developers on Monday. Among those screenshots, new ones posted a few minutes ago show what looks like Nuance voice recognition baked into the OS – in the weeks leading up to WWDC 2011, Nuance was in the middle of Internet speculation for a possible deal with Apple that would allow the company to tightly integrate Nuance’ voices and functionalities into iOS for text-to-speech, voice recognition, and more.

The screenshots show some options like “mic on space key”, “auto-record input” and “Nuance dictation”, which seem to suggest Apple has been testing ways to integrate additional buttons in the default iPhone keyboard to let users speak and have text transcribed on screen. Nuance indeed has an application for the iPhone called Dragon Dictation (our review here) that enables users to do just that in seconds. Nuance voices are also built-in in Mac OS X Lion as reported a few weeks ago.

The Chronic Wire is promising more screenshots from these internal settings and we’re certainly looking forward to more tidbits hidden inside iOS 5. No Nuance announcement or partnership was unveiled at WWDC, with new rumors now suggesting that everything could be unveiled in the Fall before the release of iOS and perhaps during the iPhone 5 keynote.

First Third-Party iOS 5 Widget Released In Cydia

A few hours after the release of redsn0w for iOS 5 beta 1, some developers found out it was technically possible to develop widgets for iOS 5. In the new OS, in fact, Apple is restricting the use of “widgets” (they don’t even call them this way) to the Stocks and Weather applications, which, through the Settings, can have a “widget” or “ticker” in the new Notification Center. Currently, the widget section of Notification Center can only be used on the iPhone, as the iPad didn’t get the functionality for some reason.

iSpazio reports [Google Translation] the first third-party, fully functional iOS 5 widget has been released in Cydia, and it’s called UISettings. Available for quite some time in Cydia as an extension of the multitasking bar, the app has been completely rewritten to work as a widget under iOS 5, providing shortcuts for a system respring, a WiFi and Bluetooth switch, as well as AirPlane mode and Brightness controls. The concept’s similar to the popular SBSettings tweak, though UISettings is limited to a handful of shortcuts and controls.

The widget can be downloaded from the developers’ beta repo (http://qwertyoruiop.com/beta), and a new version is already in the works. The possibility of developing and releasing custom widgets in Cydia may offer an interesting alternative to Apple’s restrictions if the company decides to prevent developers from building third-party widgets in iOS 5, although everything can change come the final release of the OS this summer. Apple may even announce new Store sections for widgets (or Safari extensions) and surprise developers a few weeks ahead of iOS 5’s release. This is just speculation on our side however, so in the meantime you can download UISettings and check out how a custom widget integrates with Apple’s Notification Center.

Apple Confirms “Extremely Small” Verizon iPad 2 Recall

Reports surfaced earlier today indicated Apple was in the process of recalling Verizon iPad 2 models that were being shipped from China (where they’re made) to the United States, leading to speculation that faulty units had been produced by Foxconn. In a brief note to All Things Digital, however, Apple has confirmed that they have recalled an “extremely small” number of Verizon iPad 2 due to a problem with device identifiers, otherwise known as “mobile equipment identifiers” (MEIDs), which play a key role when setting up a new iPad for cellular data activation. Due to a problem with Verizon flashing the same MEID on different iPads, users could run into the impossibility of activating their device as it’s already registered on the carrier’s network.

Duplicate MEID numbers were flashed onto an extremely small number of iPad 2 units for the verizon 3G network,” an Apple representative said on Friday.

Although most of the small number of devices involved were still in the process of hitting the market, a few had already found their way into customers’ hands.

Some iPad 2 customers have reported receiving credits and free accessories as a compensation for the delay, although Apple hasn’t issued an official statement or policy in regards to this recall. It is also unclear what the company will do for those customers who have already got their hands on a Verizon iPad 2 with the wrong MEID, but it wouldn’t be a surprise if Apple contacted this small number of people to issue a full refund or send a new unit free of charge.

iCloud Communications Sues Apple Over iCloud Trademark

Yesterday in the US District Court in Arizona, iCloud Communications, LLC filed a suit against Apple for trademark infringement over the name iCloud.

iCloud Communications, LLC, claims that Apple’s new promotions of all things iCloud is damaging (seriously?) to iCloud Communications’ business. They also believe that Apple has taken their own name branding and associated it with Apple’s own (well, maybe). They are accusing Apple of offering services similar to the ones that they offer.

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Stay on Top of Retweets, Faves, and Follows from your Menubar with Bird Bell: Review and Giveaway!

If you’ve wanted to stay on top of your Twitter status in real time, many Twitter clients won’t show you whether that last tweet caused a few unfollows or if it was fave’d by a few of your fans. For those obsessed with getting realtime feedback, Bird Bell is an excellent companion app to any Twitter client you have on the Mac, integrating with Growl and displaying real time feedback on retweets, follows, unfollows, favorites, and lists you’re added to. Bird Bell integrates with both Twitter and Favstar, and can be customized to a wide extent in revealing growl or menubar notifications per account. With the official Twitter app for the Mac (which offers live streaming), Bird Bell can give you a bird’s eye view on just how responsive your audience is to what you’ve tweeted as soon as you’ve hit the return key. Bird Bell works in the background, and only notifies you based on your interests: I personally don’t care about follows and unfollows, and choose to see favorites and retweets instead.

Twitter junkies who want to revel in their tweets can purchase Bird Bell on the Mac App Store for $1.99 — it’s a great utility that works alongside your favorite Twitter clients. We’re also giving away five copies of Bird Bell, and you can click past the break for your chance to win.

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AirServer 2.2: AirPlay On OS X Already Working with Lion and iOS 5

AirServer is an OS X utility I first reviewed in May that allows you send music, photos and videos from iOS devices to a Mac’s display using AirPlay. Unlike similar apps that enabled such functionality before, AirServer stood out because the first release was stable, fast, and cheap at $3. Since then the price increased to $4.99, but the developers released a plethora of updates (seriously, I’m pretty sure I updated the app more than 10 times) to bring several other functionalities like dual display support, a different icon, a settings panel, audio controls, service rebroadcasting, and more.

With the latest 2.2 update, however, the developers have gone all out to implement early support for iOS 5 and OS X Lion. Both OSes aren’t out yet, but if you’re rocking the betas on your device or computer you’ll be able to use AirServer to beam music and videos – you’ll just have to disable dual-mode AirPlay on iOS 5 for now. The devs also said that they’re looking into implementing iOS 5’s AirPlay Mirroring on AirServer (iOS apps mirrored on a Mac, that would be nice), but that could be difficult as it uses Apple’s FairPlay encryption.

Alongside OS compatibility, recent AirServer updates also brought audio controls in video apps, support for Boxee, XBMC, FrontRow, Wake on Demand, as well as 24-bit audio support. I’ve tested AirServer with iOS 5 and Snow Leopard and it works very well, with songs and YouTube videos playing just fine on my MacBook Pro.

Go download Air Server here.

“iCloud Is The Operating System”

The conversation my friend Francesca and I were having in front of a good cup of coffee ended when she concluded that iCloud was the operating system.

At first, that silly statement didn’t make any sense to me. I laughed, and tried to explain her that it’s not the operating system – the one you have to download and install on your computer or device – rather, I told her iCloud was a new way to keep all her content stored somewhere else she could access at any time. But the more I went on to illustrate the advantages of pushing media from the Internet (“the cloud”) to devices without a USB cable, the more she kept asking why would that be any different from having the operating system on the Internet, “doing stuff for you automatically.” Read more

iOS 5 To Allow 1080p Video Export

Following the increasing speculation about the next-generation iPhone getting an 8-megapixel camera, the iOS 5 beta seeded to developers earlier this week keeps providing interesting details on features that Apple is baking into the OS, but aren’t ready or usable yet as they’re being built for future devices. In addition to iOS 5 enabling playback of 1080p video files scaled down to 720p as Apple hasn’t built a screen with enough resolution to support 1080p, 9to5mac points to more code strings from the developer beta that seem to confirm developers will soon be able to activate video export options at 1080p in their applications. This means Apple’s apps like Camera and iMovie, or other third-party solutions, will be capable of saving 1080p files with the public release of iOS 5. Previously, developers could only export videos to 720p.

Programmers use the AVAsset class to work on a detailed level with timed media assets such as videos and sounds. It lets them examine, create, edit or reencode media files, get input streams from devices, manipulate video clips during realtime capture and playback and more. It is now clear that iOS 5 enables devices such as iPhone 4, iPad 1 and 2 and fourth-generation iPod touch to both decode 1080p videos and encode content in 1080p.

An improved camera/processor in the iPhone 5 could allow the device to go past the iPhone 4’s 720p limitation and also start shooting flicks at 1080p with dedicated export options, though Apple would need to bump up the screen resolution to offer native, true 1080p playback. As far as the camera speculation goes, a new report by Digitimes today also indicates camera lens maker Largan Precision (caught in the Apple rumor mill before) has hinted at increasing orders for 8-megapixel modules from smartphone vendors like Apple and HTC. Reports in the past months suggested Apple’s regular supplier OmniVision would provide the 8 MP camera lens for the iPhone 5, although separate claims pointed out that Largan Precision was selected by Apple.