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iPhone Nano Concept: Squeeze To Close Apps

Max Rudberg of Max Themes has tried to imagine a smaller iPhone with, as according to recent speculation, an “edge-to-edge” screen. While the WSJ report doesn’t give many details about the nature of such a screen (is it “edge-to-edge” vertically, or horizontally?), it admittedly plays very well with previous rumors of future iPhones lacking a home button. So what Max did, and you can check out in the video below, is think about a phone that’s really just a screen, but that you can “squeeze” to close apps and go back to the Springboard.

A more intuitive way could be to equip the phone with a pressure-sensitive body. The phone could then be squeezed and the current app would shrink and return the user to the Home screen.

This could be a real wow effect. Seeing how the phone reacts to your grip and then having the app vanish in the palm of your hand.

To avoid ‘squeeze to go Home’ from happening by accident, a visual cue could show that pressure is being applied. In this concept, the app begins to shrink to reflect the pressure that is being applied. When the pressure goes over a defined threshold, the user is returned to the Home screen.

It sounds very futuristic, we know, but it could be a good idea for when the iPhone will eventually lose the Home button. What do you think? Read more

iPhone 4 Best Mobile Device At Mobile World Congress→

iPhone 4 Best Mobile Device At Mobile World Congress

Judges’ comments:
Great screen, sharp design, fantastic materials, and phenomenal ecosystem for app developers. In a tight race, the iPhone 4 built on the success of its predecessors to set the pace for smart phones.

A few notes about this particular 2011 Global World Award:

* The only other phone that stands out from 2010 would be HTC’s Evo.
* Say what you want about Apple’s 30% cut in the App Store, but it’s leagues beyond the Android Marketplace.
* Apple isn’t even at this event.

No handset looks or feels better in the hand than the iPhone 4. Congratulations Cupertino.

Steve Jobs also won personality of the year in 2010.

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People Spend 200 Million Minutes Playing Angry Birds. Every Day.

Okay, we know Angry Birds has become a social phenomenon like no one ever did before, but the latest numbers shared by Rovio’s “mighty eagle” Peter Vesterbacka are just impressive. Absurd, if you think about it. Here’s the revelation: people spend 200 million minutes every day playing Angry Birds on the platform the game is available. 200 million minutes means every week 1,400,000,000 minutes are spent killing the infamous pigs that made this game famous. That’s over the billion, and I don’t even want to do the math for all the months Angry Birds has been available.

Of course, I assume other popular PC and console games have impressive numbers as well, but this is insane for mobile gaming – a market that four years ago was basically non-existent, or at least dreaming of reaching such a level of popularity. Remember when we used to play Snake on our Nokia cellphones? That’s exactly what I mean. Think about those days, and look at Angry Birds’ success now. The change in less than a decade is incredible.

You can listen to Rovio CEO talk about the proliferation of the birds below. With a new version coming out in March and a sequel likely to debut in 2011, I would buy some Rovio stock if it was available right now. Read more

A Week After Verizon iPhone Launch, AT&T CEO Is Unhappy About The App Store

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson doesn’t think the App Store model is what consumers want. In fact, a week after the public release of the Verizon iPhone (AT&T has been the iPhone’s exclusive carrier in the US since 2007), he thinks carriers (surprise) should sell apps to consumers as HTML5 pieces of software available through the “Wholesale Applications Community” – an app store set up by carriers.

Stephenson doesn’t explicitly mention Apple, but the statement speaks for itself:

You purchase an app for one operating system, and if you want it on another device or platform, you have to buy it again,” Stephenson said in a keynote speech at the world’s largest mobile-phone trade show in Barcelona, Spain. “That’s not how our customers expect to experience this environment.

The move to universal webapps that run on any environment is great, we just think the timing of this statement is quite interesting. After all, AT&T isn’t happy about losing exclusivity of the iPhone in the United States. And the commercials prove that, in a weekly effort to convince consumers that their network is better, while just about any review of the Verizon iPhone confirmed that Big Red’s network is more reliable, although slower with data transfers.

Still, AT&T, Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile have all teamed up to sell HTML5 apps in the Wholesale Applications Community. I wonder if this app store will come with an iPhone-optimized mobile interface. [via The Loop]

Analyst: iPhone Nano Could Expand Apple’s Market By 6x

With recent rumors about a smaller, cheaper, streaming-only iPhone, it’s no surprise analysts are weighing in to offer their take on the subject. After the predictions of Apple’s promising 2011, a new iPhone model targeting “the masses” with a lower price point and possibility to run off-contract surely could deeply affect Apple’s market worldwide.

As reported by Forbes, analyst Toni Sacconaghi of Bernstein Research believes the so-called “iPhone nano” (or “iPhone mini”) could expand Apple’s addressable market by six times in terms of units:

Sacconaghi says his analysis suggests a lower price phone could expand Apple’s addressable market by 6x in terms of units and 2.5x in revenue. Based on the expected size of the 2011 market, and assuming the company captured 5% of the expanded market, he calculates that Apple would get an annual profit boost of $4.50 a share.

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The Future of MobileMe: A Mix of Facebook, Foursquare and uStream?

Cult of Mac is today reporting that some of the new features in a supposedly revamped MobileMe could include a live video streaming service, a location based check-in system and a geo-tagging service. The information was gathered from an anonymous source that said Apple is working ambitiously on cloud computing features for MobileMe, particularly to enable sharing data and location-based services.

The centerpiece of the re-invigorated MobileMe would be a “dynamic webpage that sounds like a mashup of Facebook, Foursquare and Ustream.” This page would aggregate information garnered from a users iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch including the users location, photos and videos. This sounds like a similar service to what Apple was granted a patent to last year regarding ‘Social Workflows’ which would allow simple sharing of information with others.

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MagicWand Connects Magic Trackpad and Apple Keyboard

The MagicWand, a new accessory from Mac-only company TwelveSouth, aims at transforming your desk into the setup you’ve always dreamed of by connecting the Magic Trackpad you know and love with the Apple Bluetooth Keyboard. With the MagicWand, the Magic Trackpad and the keyboard will become a single input device you can use with any Mac anywhere you are – on your desk, sofa, kitchen, and so forth.

The concept of a unified keyboard and trackpad isn’t new to Mac aficionados. In the past months, we covered the BulletTrain Express, a product that puts the two pieces of hardware onto a single aluminum surface. The concept of the MagicWand is similar, but the experience looks more streamlined and easier to set up. Plus, you don’t have to buy a dedicated keyboard or additional trackpad as you just have to set up the accessory to connect Apple’s devices.

TwelveSouth’s promo video and product page detail some of the scenarios for the MagicWand, such as Photoshop “two hands at a time” or browsing photos on your Mac from the comfort of your couch. The idea, again, is interesting and elegant enough in typical TwelveSouth’s fashion.

The MagicWand will cost you $29.99 with free shipping for a limited time (United States only). Check out the MagicWand’s official page for more info, and video after the break. Read more

Windows Phone 7 Connector: Microsoft’s First Mac App Store App

After being in public beta form since October, Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 Connector application for Mac has lost its beta tag and is available in the Mac App Store – Microsoft’s first app to be in Apple’s new app store. The application gives Mac users the ability to sync music, photos, videos and podcasts to a Windows Phone 7 phone or a Zune.

Whilst Windows Phone 7 Connector is simplistic and not as full featured as the Zune software on Windows, it does feature iTunes compatibility and can also update the firmware on Windows Phone 7 phones. It is available for free in the Mac App Store.

[Via Engadget]

Shazam’s Music Sourcers Add Jobs To Music Industry, Give Music Lovers Their Ultimate Job

Shazam the popular music-identifying app on mobile phones is giving some music aficionados their ultimate job, listening to new music all day as a ‘music sourcer’. The New York Times spoke to one such person working for Shazam, Charles Slomovitz whose job requires him to hunt down new music and artists to ensure Shazam’s music-identifying engine can identify song that its users may hear.

Shazam has grown to a user base of over 100 million users who ping the service 3 million times a day, and Andrew Fisher, Shazam’s chief executive says that “when people use a service like Shazam, they expect it to work all the time”. As a result Mr. Slomovitz and others around the world who find new music are vital to ensure the accuracy of Shazam, which is available in over 200 countries. Similarly Pandora has also created new jobs in the music industry with its so called ‘musicologists’ who analyze songs on the basis of numerous characteristics to give users the ability to find similar music.

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