Patent Hints At Apple’s Traffic Service for Calendar Alerts

When Apple posted the location tracking Q&A to address the questions raised after two researchers discovered iOS was keeping a database of cell towers and WiFi hotspots iPhones and iPads used in the past stored unencrypted on a user’s computer, the company also revealed that, besides crowd-sourced WiFi hotspot and cell tower data, they were also collecting crowed-sourced traffic data to build an improved traffic service to launch in the next couple of years. Much speculation led to believe Apple was finalizing work on its own maps service after the acquisition of poly9 and Placebase, though a report from last week and a tidbit from Google’s Chairman Eric Schmidt confirmed the upcoming iOS 5, which will be unveiled on Monday, will keep using Google Maps.

Whilst Apple’s mapping technology and traffic service seem to be in the works for a future version of iOS, perhaps iOS 6 in 2012, a new patent uncovered by AppleInsider today gives us a glimpse at how Apple could use traffic data, GPS signal and the Calendar application to build a service that keeps users informed on appointments and meetings and how long it would take to get there, with real-time information. The patent, entitled “Dynamic Alerts for Calendar Events”, was filed in 2009 and published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office recently. According to the application, Apple is envisioning a system where an iPhone can send a calendar alert based on location and time required to get to a specific location; by analyzing upcoming events and appointments, the operating system would be able to look at the location, consider external factors such as weather and traffic, and calculate how much time it would take to get to the destination. The user would be alerted with a popup on screen, which in the patent design shows “map” and “routes” options as the system would also provide a way to find the best route based on road conditions, traffic, and so forth.

Location-based alerts and scheduled reminders are currently possible in a variety of iOS applications – however, a centralized system developed by Apple would rely on years of crowd-sourced data collection to bring extensive information and, perhaps, accurate predictions on traffic and road conditions. Apple is expected to preview iOS 5 at the WWDC keynote on June 6, though such traffic service won’t likely find its way in the new OS.

Gameloft’s MMO for iOS Makes $1 Million in 20 Days

Gameloft, the game developer well known among iPhone and iPad users for releasing apps clearly inspired by famous, older PC and console games, has managed to make $1 million in just 20 days with their latest MMO (massively multiplayer online) adventure for iOS called Order and Chaos and available on the App Store at $6.99. The app runs on the iPhone, iPod and iPad, and on top of the price tag to download it from the App Store it also comes with in-app purchases to unlock runes, golds, and other game-related goods. The premium model chosen by Gameloft (ask for a price and keep selling additional items in-app) has turned out to be a successful one with $1M made in the first 3 weeks of availability.

Furthermore, Gameloft is promising more updates coming out in the next months to add more functionalities and server-side features to expand the virtual world of Order & Chaos. If the whole concept sounds a lot like Blizzard’s insanely popular World of Warcraft, it’s because it is similar – Gameloft obviously decided to target iOS users hungry for a WoW clone, a game that years after its original release and in spite of outdated graphics (when compared to more recent PC games) still has a strong and large userbase. TouchArcade reports future updates will bring “new quests, the ability to migrate characters between servers, and separate chat channels for each language”, alongside new dungeons to explore and Player Vs. Player arenas.

Order & Chaos is available at $6.99 in the App Store, so make sure to check it out if you’re a WoW fan looking for an alternative on iOS devices. [via TUAW]

Pixelmator 2.0 Announced And Teased, Coming This Summer

The Pixelmator team has today revealed details of what is coming in Pixelmator 2.0, the next major version of Pixelmator. The popular Mac image editor will bring big new features in the 2.0 version, including Content-Aware fill, a healing tool, new and improved retouching tools and a smudge tool – many of which are advanced features included in (the much more expensive) Photoshop application from Adobe.

Drawing tools will be completely revamped in the 2.0 version, currently codenamed Chameleon, and allow users to create and edit vector shapes with precise tools. The drawing tools will include the Pen, Freeform Pen, Convert and Path Selection tools as well as tools to include pre-drawn shapes too. The full-featured drawing tools mean that there are fill, stroke and shadow options for shapes – all in all the Pixelmator teams say the new drawing tools will be very useful for creating web page elements and illustrations and various other items.

The Content-Aware Fill technology in Pixelmator 2.0 promises to “magically get rid of unwanted elements in images”, any of the selection tools or the Healing Tool will let you select a region of the picture and Pixelmator will “smartly and seamlessly” fill the area with nearby image content. Also in the retouching field, the new Sponge Tool will let users add or take away color from areas of an image, Burn and Dodge will let users alter the brightness and the Red Eye Tool will get rid of those pesky red-eye effects.

Other notable new features are the Smudge Tool for “smearing paint” which could be used by users to rub out blemishes and a cleaner user interface. If you are interested, be sure to jump over to the Pixelmator 2.0 ‘Sneak Preview’ page, which runs down a whole list of new features and shows off some screenshots. Pixelmator 2.0 will be available exclusively to the Mac App Store at a cost of $59 later this summer. However, if you purchase the current version of Pixelmator for $29, you will get a free upgrade to Pixelmator 2.0 when it is released.

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AirPort and Time Capsule Stock Running Low, Refresh Imminent?

Both TUAW and MacRumors report tonight several Apple retail store locations in the United States are running / have run out of stock for AirPort Express and AirPort Extreme stations, as well as Time Capsule units. Both reports indicate how some stores have completely run out of Time Capsule and AirPort Express / Extreme without getting any new shipments, with other locations lacking only AirPort Express stations. TUAW also hints at a store getting a notice to send all available units back.

A reader let us know that all of the Apple Stores in his area are out of AirPort Express models, and one of our sources confirmed the Apple Store in his area is out of stock on not just the Express, but the AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule as well. Another source says supplies at one store are not constrained and never have been, but the store “may have” received a notice to send its AirPort device inventory back.

Supply constraints ahead of the WWDC may hint at upcoming refreshes to the various lines being announced next week, though several reports claimed the Developers Conference would be software focused with no hardware announcements. As the Apple online store still reports 24 hours shipments for AirPort devices and the family was last updated almost two years ago, Apple might as well simply take the store down sometime next week and release the new product without an on-stage announcement. Some are already speculating Apple could deploy its own home-based networking solution to interact with iCloud much like devices like the Pogoplug already allow you to access locally stored media from a remote device, though the solution sounds unlikely as it appears Apple is shooting for an all-remote, cloud-based service with streaming and storage on the company’s servers. However, the AirPort Extreme station could use an update to bring an additional USB port or more integration with iOS devices – these are some features AirPort Extreme users (including me) have been asking and wondering about a lot lately.

Thunderbolt Shows its Speedy Side at Computex 2011 With Products from Promise and LaCie

Apple is trying to convince many that Thunderbolt is the next big thing when it comes to input/output technology, yet Thunderbolt-ready devices aren’t yet available to consumers who wish to utilize their new Mac’s Thunderbolt interface. Manufacturers have already announced a few Thunderbolt powered devices as seen on the NAB show floor, and at this year’s Computex, LaCie and Promise are demonstrating just how fast Thunderbolt enabled storage can be.

Promise demoed two storage systems branded as the Pegasus R4 and Pegasus R6 in four and six bay configurations respectively. These storage arrays have two Thunderbolt ports so they can be daisy chained to the same interface (up to six devices), although video output requires that the last connection be via DisplayPort. The arrays support RAID 0/1/5/6 and RAID 10, and support both 3.5” and 2.5” drives. While 6 Gbps drives are supported, only a transfer rate of 850 MB/s was noted in RAID 0 by AnandTech. With performing transfer rates at 633 MB/s in reading and 734 MB/s in writing, the Pegasus storage arrays aren’t too shabby when it comes to moving storage from your Mac to your hard drives, and speed and data-redundancy geeks can look for a late June release. Past the break, we have a quick video on Promise’s hardware demo and more on LaCie’s competitive alternative.

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BlackBerry Desktop Beta for Mac Adds PlayBook Sync

BlackBerry PlayBook owners who also happen to have a Mac have been waiting for a BlackBerry Desktop release with support for tablet sync, which since launch has been exclusive to Windows PCs with RIM promising a Mac release (alongside many other features like a proper email client) this summer. Electronista reports users of Beta Zone (RIM’s beta distribution channel for various programs and enterprise tools) have now access to the 2.1 beta version of BlackBerry Desktop for Mac that adds media sync for photos and videos, but excludes standard functionalities like backups.

It’s not clear whether the new beta version also comes with music sync, contacts and calendar sync with iCal and Entourage, or the switch wizard to migrate data from a BlackBerry smartphone to the PlayBook. The new desktop app can be downloaded by participating in BlackBerry’s Beta Zone here.

GarageBand for iPad Gets AirPlay and Copy & Paste, iMovie Updated with Various Fixes

A few minutes ago Apple released updates to GarageBand for iPad and iMovie for iOS, bringing the apps to versions 1.0.1 and 1.2.1, respectively. The most notable update in GarageBand is the inclusion of AirPlay audio output which now allows to send tracks to external speakers wirelessly. GarageBand also got Bluetooth compatibility and HDMI output with Apple’s Digital AV Adapter. Alongside bug fixes, stability improvements and possibility to import AIFF, WAV, CAF audio files and Apple Loops at 16 bit /44.1 kHz, the new GarageBand for iPad can receive audio files from the system clipboard via copy & paste. A support document details the new functionality:

You can paste an audio file from an app that supports copying audio to the clipboard. GarageBand for iPad supports uncompressed audio files with a sample rate of 44.1 kHz and 16-bit depth (the standard for audio CDs).

Audio files copied from another app can be pasted to Audio Recorder or Guitar amp tracks.

iMovie for iPhone and iPad received an update as well with the following changes:

  • Audio plays from your HDTV when using the Apple Digital AV Adapter.
  • Video plays full screen from Marquee to your HDTV when using the Apple Digital AV Adapter.
  • Resolves some cases of missing media in projects.
  • Provides more accurate clip grouping by date in Video browser.
  • Fixes an issue where a project’s background music would not fade in or out.
  • Additional performance and reliability improvements.

Both the GarageBand for iPad and iMovie updates are available now in the App Store.

“iPhone Hooks” Now Allow Apps To Send Photos to Instagram

After the launch of an official API a few months back that allowed developers to read content posted on Instagram and display photos in external iOS, Mac and web apps, the service saw a huge growth in popularity, registered users, and connected applications capable of visualizing Instagram’s streams outside of the (only) official iPhone app. We have seen a plethora of iOS and Mac apps coming out in the past weeks, giving users the possibility to browse Instagram through a “client” different from the app, providing new interactions and interface schemes otherwise impossible without the use of an API. What the API lacks though, is read access to let 3rd-party apps upload to Instagram.

As MG Siegler at TechCrunch reports, Instagram founder Kevin Systrom has no plans on opening a full-read API to let other control the social stream and upload photos not generated with Instagram’s filters and requirements, but they do have a plan to allow developers to easily send files to the Instagram app. This feature is called “iPhone Hooks” and it sounds a lot like iOS’ default “Open In” menu combined with clever URI schemes: provided an application can snap photos and save them to jpeg or png, Instagram can let this app hook into the posting process to transfer the file from app x to Instagram. Just like in the 100 Cameras in 1 iPhone app, users can snap a picture and “send it to Instagram” to apply filters and upload. With iPhone Hooks, any photo app in the future could be updated to support sending a photo to the filter interface, or simply open a specific user stream, tag and location feed. The possibility to pass along photos is of course the most intriguing option, as apps like Photogene, Camera+ or Camera Genius could take advantage of that to shoot photos, let users apply filters and edits, then send to Instagram. iPhone Hooks apparently don’t let developers apply any sort of watermark or ID to the photo (example: “shot with Camera+”) as the file is still processed by Instagram; however, users could still leave a comment to specify what app they used, and overall it’s a good thing for a 3rd-party dev to have an app that works with Instagram.

Co-founder Kevin Systrom compares this functionality to the copy and paste functionality baked into iOS. But again, this is for images, not text. “We wanted to make it easier for other iPhone apps (and iPhone web-apps) to hook into Instagram to open a particular item or post a photo through our app,” co-founder Mike Krieger says. Yes, you read that correctly, this can work with web-based apps too.

Currently, only 100 Cameras in 1 is using this functionality, but Instagram says they’re discussing implementation with other partners.

More details from the Instagram Developer page:

When triggered, Instagram will immediately present the user with our filter screen. The image is preloaded and sized appropriately for Instagram. Other than using the appropriate image format, described above, our only requirement is that the image is at least 612px tall and/or wide. For best results, Instagram prefers opening a JPEG that is 612px by 612px square. If the image is larger, it will be resized dynamically.

An important note: If either dimension of the image is less than 612 pixels, Instagram will present an alert to the user saying we were unable to open the file.

The new feature can be tested in the 100 Cameras in 1 iPhone app, and it’s likely more developers will support it in the next weeks. With iOS 5 rumored to get direct Twitter integration for photos, sharing pictures on our iPhones and iPads could soon become a very different process.