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#MacStoriesDeals - Thursday
Showyou: An Interactive Wall To Watch and Share Videos
Released yesterday for free in the App Store, Showyou is a new universal app aimed at letting you discover videos shared by your friends on Twitter and Facebook, and share these findings yourself in your social graph. Unlike Squrl – which we reviewed yesterday as well – Showyou isn’t a service meant for curating videos in collections and grab them from a web browser through a bookmarklet: rather, it’s a very simple app that wants to offer a better way to browse videos found on Twitter and Facebook with the “Showyou Grid” – a 2D video wall that you can pan horizontally and vertically, very similar to what we’ve already seen in the Aweditorium iPad app.
Once logged in with Twitter or Facebook, Showyou will find friends that are already using the app and it gives you the option to “follow them”. The more people you follow, the more videos you get and the more populated the Grid becomes. By default it shows nearly 1,000 videos – many of those collected from Showyou’s system, so it really depends on how many people you start following and how much content they decide to share publicly. But there’s no doubt Showyou works best the moment you start following people and engaging with the service itself, as it also showcases “featured users” the developers recommend you follow to get interesting videos. The video wall was quite responsive yesterday when I first installed the app, but I’m noticing some slow loading times today – presumably a lot of people gave Showyou a try (again, it’s free) and the servers are getting hammered under heavy traffic. When videos load, however, not only you get a beautiful presentation with big thumbnails and an elegant Futura font – you can tap on each video to view it in a bigger popup window overlaying the main grid, share it or leave a comment. You can also tell a user you liked a video he shared by “thanking” him. If you don’t like the Grid view, you can switch to a cleaner list that shows you videos one after the other.
Overall, Showyou it’s a really simple app that gets one thing done extremely well: collecting videos shared by your friends. It’s not as full-featured as Squrl when it comes to exploring the Internet hunting for cool videos to curate (I mean, they’re two deeply different products), but if you’re looking for an easy way to see what your friends are watching you should take Showyou for a spin.
Intel To Support Both USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt with Ivy Bridge
Yesterday, Intel confirmed they will support both USB 3.0 and the recently-introduced Thunderbolt technology in 2012. USB 3.0 – evolution of a widely adopted standard in PCs, mobile devices and tablets – failed to gain support by chipset maker Intel in 2010 and early 2011 as the company only enabled it in desktop motherboards powered by a NEC chip, thus focusing on finalizing the development of Light Peak instead, now known as Thunderbolt. USB 3.0 promises data transfers 10 times faster than USB 2.0, but it can’t reach the 10 Gbps capabilities of Thunderbolt – implemented by Apple and Intel in the latest MacBook Pros, and expected to come to more OS X computers and desktop peripherals in the near future.
Intel is going to support USB 3.0 in the 2012 client platform. We’re going to support Thunderbolt capability. We believe they’re complementary,” said Kirk Skaugen, a vice president at the Intel Architecture Group, speaking at Intel’s developer conference in Beijing today. The event was streamed over the Web.
With the 2011 MacBook Pro refresh, Apple used Intel’s Sandy Bridge processors to increase the performances of the new line and implement Thunderbolt, which allows for multiple connections (daisy-chaining) and high-speed data transfers with a variety of external devices. A report published a day before Apple launched the new MacBook Pros with Thunderbolt and Sandy Bridge processors suggested the 2012 refresh would be a big milestone release for Apple, with a completely new design and breakthrough features. If Intel will manage to get Ivy Bridge chipsets available in the market by the first quarter of 2012, some speculate Apple might consider supporting both Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 as well – it’s worth noting that Intel is indeed telling developers and manufacturers to support both standards. [via Cnet, Engadget]
Instacast 1.2 Adds Dropbox and Instapaper Integration, Lots More
You should have realized by now Instacast has become our favorite way of consuming audio and video podcasts here at MacStories. Whether it’s the latest episode of Shawn Today or tips from Merlin Mann on “Back to Work”, Instacast is the best way to keep podcasts organized and up-to-date without using iTunes (and thus USB sync) on your iPhone. Instacast packs a lot of features into a simple and elegant interface that’s backed by a powerful engine to refresh all your subscriptions, download episodes, stream them over WiFi and 3G and even send audio to an external speaker over AirPlay. Instacast is the Twitter of podcast apps, and it got a lot better in version 1.2 – approved a few hours ago.
Instacast 1.2 adds Dropbox integration to import / export an OPML file for all subscriptions. OPML support has also been introduced in this update, alongside the possibility to share the file via email with your friends. If you’re familiar with RSS readers, you know what to expect from OPML importing. If you’re really serious about your podcasts and you don’t want to miss anything from the authors, Instacast now allows you send show notes to Instapaper and Read It Later. The podcasts I’m subscribed to usually have brief descriptions and a few notes, but I can see why some people would like to Instapaper longer ones.
Instacast 1.2 also brings dozens of stability improvements and bug fixes, as well as minor features like “copy podcast URL to clipboard”, sharing options and auto-refresh for subscriptions. It’s a very good update (now we can’t wait for the iPad version, already in the works) and you can find it here at $1.99.
“ix.Mac.MarketingName” String Appears In The App Store - What Could It Be?
As noticed by several developers and bloggers last night soon after Tweetbot went live in the United States, a strange and curious string started appearing in the App Store’s description pages, under the “Requirements” info tab: ix.Mac.MarketingName. Initially tweeted by Panic’s developer Cabel Sasser, the “bug” has extended to hundreds of other apps in the Store.
This string has lead many to speculate it could be an indication of a new device capable of running iOS apps in the works that’s somehow showing up on the App Store due to a technical error, an old placeholder, or a simple bug on Apple’s end that doesn’t mean anything. Some theories point to “ix.Mac” as an emulator for iOS apps on the desktop – similar to what Apple is already doing with the iPhone Simulator, but for consumers. Others speculate it could be a new device, a sign of universal OS X / iOS apps, or apps finally coming to the Apple TV. The Apple TV second-gen, however, runs a modified version of iOS – whilst the string clearly mentions the Mac.
The most interesting theory we’ve read so far is perhaps looking a bit too much into the placeholder’s name, yet here it is: what if it’s not “ix.Mac.MarketingName” but iX – as in iOS meets OS X?
You can see an example of the string here.
Update: Apple removed the string from every app in the Store. See here.
Tweetbot for iPhone Review
I remember when I bought my first iPhone, Twittelator was the first Twitter client I downloaded from the App Store. Back then I wasn’t writing for MacStories, and I didn’t know about Loren Brichter’s Tweetie. I used Twittelator for months: it was a great app that had everything I needed. I saw no point in switching to another application, let alone start browsing the App Store looking for alternatives. Twitter was a young platform in the middle of expansion with lots of downtime issues, there were no lists or location features and the concept of “retweets” was just taking off thanks to the initiative of some users not affiliated with Twitter at all. For what I had to do, Twittelator was fine. Then I started MacStories, and the hunt for more compelling, alternative, different Twitter apps began.
Twitterrific came after Twittelator for me. I used it for a couple of months and then finally purchased Tweetie – which had seen a terrific rise in popularity thanks to an elegant UI design, a fast engine and a simple, yet powerful set of features. I fell in love with Tweetie: it was stable, fast, intuitive, continually updated. It received the support of the entire Apple community, and it quickly became a standard among iPhone geeks to have Tweetie on a device’s homescreen. The rest is history: Tweetie 2 shipped and revolutionized the ecosystem with pull to refresh, gestures, a refreshed interface and, overall, the richest feature set available on the market. In the meantime, Twitter as a platform was growing to accommodate more users, more servers and – as a side effect to media starting to use the service to deliver news – more responsibilities. Without going back through all the changes that happened at Twitter HQ between 2009 and 2010, you might remember when the company announced they were buying Loren Brichter’s Tweetie and putting him in the position of lead mobile developer. Twitter rebranded the app as “Twitter for iPhone”, Tweetie 2 for Mac disappeared from our radars to eventually come back as Twitter for Mac. Twitter as a company has changed (so much that they don’t even want too many unofficial clients anymore), but the core concept of the service stays the same: it’s all about sharing content in real time. That hasn’t changed at all. If anything, it got better. Read more
World of Goo Now Available for iPhone, Now Universal
2D Boy’s mega hit World of Goo set records for iPad sales and just last week we told you that a universal update was awaiting approval. The universal update is now available with support for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. So instead of walking around in circles waiting for Tweetbot (and our review), why not grab the universal update to World of Goo HD? It’s only $4.99 and you can get your gooey hands on it right here.
An iPhone/iPod Touch only version is also available for only $.99, you can get it here.
White iPhone 4 Coming In Two Weeks?
Bloomberg Businessweek reports Apple is readying the sale of the long-awaited white iPhone 4, which should become available by the end of April. The publication mentions “three people familiar with the plans”, and claims the device will be available both on AT&T and Verizon in the United States.
Apple Inc. will begin selling a white model of the iPhone 4 in the next few weeks after a 10- month delay, according to three people familiar with the plans.
The new version will be available from AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless by the end of April, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans aren’t public.
Last month, Apple’s Phil Schiller confirmed with a tweet to a customer that the white iPhone 4 would be available in Spring and that it’s a “beauty.” The release of the device was delayed multiple times in the past due to alleged production issues with the white panel. The exact reason why Apple delayed the initial June 2010 release date hasn’t been revealed by the company, but previous speculation suggested problems with the white paint caused the device to take bad photos due to light leaks. A rumor also pointed to Apple relying on a new Japanese paint for its white iPhone 4; it’s not clear at this point whether the unit will launch by the end of April only in United States, or internationally as well. Apple was also rumored to be considering a white version of the iPhone 5 for a summer 2011 launch – although recent rumors about a “delayed” iPhone 5 in September with a WWDC focused on software doesn’t leave much credence to the original report. The white iPhone 4 recently showed up on various international carrier websites and Best Buy internal inventory systems.
Teardown: What’s Inside Apple’s Big New iPad 2 Dock (+ iPad 1 Dock)→
Teardown: What’s Inside Apple’s Big New iPad 2 Dock (+ iPad 1 Dock)
First, if you’ve ever wondered how Apple gets those docks to feel substantial, the answer’s not tiny sandbags. Each version of the Dock actually has a huge, heavy metal plate inside molded with a “Zinc-3” legend on its undercarriage.
That explains why the iPad 2 Dock is so heavy. iLounge also goes as far to show the comparisons between the first iPad dock with newer model. What’s interesting is that the dock appears as one solid piece from the outside, but is divided into an outer shell and a base on which the components sit. It’s an interesting design, and one that competitors probably wouldn’t mimic: they wouldn’t hide the fact that their docks are just cheap plastic or are built & glued in multiple pieces, whereas Apple goes out of their way to make their products presentable. Even in accessories, Apple does a substantial job paying attention to solid unibody designs. TUAW writes:
In terms of actual computer hardware, as you might guess, there’s not a lot – just a few chips for functionality like authentication and of course iPad synching. In fact, the iPad 2 dock, says iLounge, has more empty space than the first dock, even though the actual design is a little more compact than before.
Also of note: the weight shown in the pictures looks heavier than it feels. If I was to perceive how the iPad 2 Dock felt by looking at the picture above, I would think it’d be as heavy as the iPad 2 itself.