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iWork ‘11 Event At Mexican Best Buy on February 19th?

Previously rumored to debut with the Mac App Store and then spotted several times on Apple’s website, iWork ‘11 is apparently nearing release. As noted by Apple Bitch, a webpage on Best Buy Mexico website points to an event on Sunday, February 19th at 7 PM to learn the basics and see what’s new in iWork ‘11.

An AppleBitch reader has spotted a new page on the website of Best Buy Mexico which suggests that iWork ’11 will be arriving on February 19th at 7pm. The webpage describes an event where you can “visit Best Buy on February 19th and find out what you can do with iWork ’11″. While this is obviously not an official announcement from Apple, this event is a good indication that iWork ’11 is nearing release. We hope it is at least, otherwise there’s going to be a fairly unhappy crowd at a Best Buy in Mexico on February 19th.

The problem with February 19th is that it’s a Saturday, not really the usual day for an Apple software release. It’s also unclear whether this is a Best Buy event for the launch of the suite, or just something to see what’s new in iWork ‘11 – not necessarily to be released this Saturday. In that case, does this mean iWork ‘11 is coming this week? But then again, it might just be an error on Best Buy’s end.

Update: Best Buy pulled the page. The link to the event is gone from the homepage as well.

Washington Post Postpones iPad App Paid Subscription

In November, we reported the launch of the official Washington Post iPad app came with a nice free subscription until February 2011. An account was required, but there was no need to submit payment information. Now that we’re well into February, you’d expect WP to release an update to the app that brings subscriptions in – but apparently they’re delaying it.

The latest update, version 1.2, adds offline reading (finally, you could say, and it works both for articles and entire sections) and “complimentary full-access subscription still provided for a limited time”. What does that mean? Washington Post is clearly playing the waiting game, and now that Apple has announced App Store subscriptions it makes sense. The Daily extended its free promotion as well, and it looks like other may follow as well. Publishers are buying themselves time before rolling out real paid subscriptions on the tablet. Or, they need more time to update their apps to include Apple’s new billing system.

You, on the other hand, don’t have to buy anything as the app is available for free here with a free subscription ready to be activated. [iTunes via TUAW]

#MacStoriesDeals - Tuesday

You can always tell when an holiday passes, app prices jump back up! Here are today’s deals on iOS, Mac, and Mac App Store apps that are on sale for a limited time, so get ‘em while they’re hot!

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iFacePad App Enables FaceTime On The iPad

Two weeks ago we reported a hacker managed to get FaceTime working in the first generation iPad, even if the device doesn’t come with the camera and the hack requires to perform a jailbreak and load some iPod touch system files. If you really want to run FaceTime on your iPad, but you don’t want to go through the manual effort of copying files and repairing permissions, iFacePad is a new app for the Mac that simplifies the process and allows you to install the iPod touch FaceTime app on the iPad in a few minutes.

To use iFacePad, you’ll need a jailbroken iPad and the iPod touch 4th gen firmware file. An app like PhoneDisk to access the iPad from the Finder is also required, and you can check out the full set of instructions here. Demo video below. [iSpazio via FunkySpaceMonkey] Read more

Replacing Flash Storage With The Cloud→

Replacing Flash Storage With The Cloud

Speaking of streaming for media through MobileMe, Chris Foreman at Ars Technica makes a good point:

Relying solely on the cloud, whatever the particular method, ignores the reality of wireless networks. Even in major cities, wireless data connections are not 100 percent ubiquitous. There are areas where connections are tenuous or nonexistent—suddenly, if you have zero bars, you would have zero data. As frustrating as it might be when you drop a data connection when trying to access a webpage, we believe the experience would be far more frustrating if your device became effectively useless anytime you went deep inside a large building, down into a basement, or on the subway.

While WiFi can help mitigate the problem somewhat, there’s still the issue of how quickly data usage rates would skyrocket if a potential iPhone nano streams all its data from the cloud. Part of the alleged reasoning behind Apple releasing an iPhone nano is the ability to offer a lower-priced device, possibly without a contract. But what benefit would this lower-cost device offer consumers if it required them to pay yet higher monthly data bills?

Ars’ report is more geared towards the recent rumors of an iPhone nano with no internal storage at all (which is incorrect anyway, as a minimum storage for the OS must be provided – you can’t “stream” iOS), but the problem remains: if Apple is moving to the cloud, then we’re all becoming dependent on always-available, reliable and “fast enough” internet connections. That’s why I believe a caching system for offline access will be needed in order for this to work properly for everyone.

The Spotify apps already do this and it’s great. You stream music, but you can save songs in your device’s cache for when you don’t have a 3G or WiFi connection available. Sure, cache can grow huge in size and waste space, but at least you’re sure you always have full access to your files.

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Publishers To Implement Subscriptions by June 30?

Following this morning’s news that Apple is officially launching App Store subscriptions for all developers, All Things Digital reports that a memo sent to publishers earlier this year indicates a June 30 deadline for developers to implement subscriptions in their content-based apps:

For existing apps already in the App Store, we are providing a grace period to bring your app into compliance with this guideline,” it reads. “To ensure your app remains on the App Store, please submit an update that uses the In App Purchase API for purchasing content, by June 30, 2011.

As John Paczkowski notes, this leaves 4 months to services like Hulu and Netflix to rebuild their apps to follow Apple’s rules and implement the new iOS subscriptions at the same price (or less) for all customers. Similar rules seem to apply to ebook reading applications: developers will need to update the apps to integrate Apple’s in-app purchases, where Apple takes its usual 30% cut. It is unclear, however, whether the memo refers to in-app purchases for single downloads (example: books in the Amazon Kindle books) or recurring subscriptions announced earlier today.

MobileMe Music Streaming: Keep It Simple

According to recent speculation, Apple is launching a complete overhaul of MobileMe this summer that will include a streaming option for media like music, movies, photos and videos recorded through an iPhone. Steve Jobs himself said in an email from last year that MobileMe would get “a lot better” in 2011. The fact that Apple is working on making MobileMe free in more sections, and more powerful and feature-rich when it comes to cloud-based access to files and media, seems pretty much obvious at this point.

The problem is “how”. With the rumors floating around, all kinds of speculation have arisen lately: cloud storage for your entire iTunes library, through a subscription à la Dropbox; cloud storage through the existing MobileMe plans; cloud storage for free. The list of possible implementations goes on and on. Yesterday, The Loop’s Jim Dalrymple weighed in with an interesting theory about a user’s Mac as a the actual cloud behind MobileMe’s streaming:

Instead of trying to provide everyone with cloud storage, I believe Apple will use MobileMe as the brain of the cloud service. The actual storage will be on our individual machines. In effect, in the cloud.

MobileMe would handle the settings and streaming settings, the files would reside on our Macs. Jim further explains:

Here’s the thing — those songs won’t actually be on my iPhone until I tap to play them. As soon as I tap to play, it will download to my phone. You can scroll through your music library and choose something else and it will download and play.

In effect, what Apple’s doing is setting up a streaming service that you host. By using advanced caching and MobileMe as the brain behind the operation, you will always have access to your media.

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Free Utility Gives Spotify for Mac Global Hotkeys

Spotify, the music streaming service that’s struggling to launch in the US, comes with a nice desktop Mac app that allows you to access the service’s online library, social features and playlists created by you or shared by other users. The app, in spite of its beautiful design and ease of use, doesn’t provide an option to control playback with the keyboard, and if you try to use the Mac’s default media keys iTunes will open instead.

Spotify Menubar, a free utility developed by Life Up North, gives your Spotify for Mac a bit of keyboard shortcut love with controls to trigger play and pause, previous and next track, and so forth. The app runs in the menubar, and can force Spotify to launch on login or open on keybind trigger. It’s really simple and starightforward, and enables you to pause streaming without interfering with iTunes.

You can download Spotify Menubar here.

Apple Launches Subscriptions for Apps

It’s official: Apple has announced subscription for App Store apps. Billing happens automatically through your iTunes account, and Apple keeps 30% of revenue if they bring a new subscriber to the app. If the publisher brings a new or existing subscriber to the app, the publisher keeps 100%. Publishers can provide alternative payment methods (outside of the app) and login systems for existing subscribers, but iTunes subscriptions must be offered as an option into the app at the same price or less. Plus, publishers can no longer insert links to external payment methods inside their apps. Here’s the gist:

Publishers who use Apple’s subscription service in their app can also leverage other methods for acquiring digital subscribers outside of the app. For example, publishers can sell digital subscriptions on their web sites, or can choose to provide free access to existing subscribers. Since Apple is not involved in these transactions, there is no revenue sharing or exchange of customer information with Apple. Publishers must provide their own authentication process inside the app for subscribers that have signed up outside of the app. However, Apple does require that if a publisher chooses to sell a digital subscription separately outside of the app, that same subscription offer must be made available, at the same price or less, to customers who wish to subscribe from within the app. In addition, publishers may no longer provide links in their apps (to a web site, for example) which allow the customer to purchase content or subscriptions outside of the app.

As for privacy policy, customers “will be given the option” to provide publishers with information, although the use of information will be under the publisher’s privacy policy. Here’s everything you need to know about subscriptions. Press release embedded below.

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