Safari “Reading List” Discovered In Lion, Apple Taking On Instapaper and Readability?

A new feature uncovered in OS X Lion by MacRumors reveals that Apple plans to take on “read it later” services such as ReadItLater, Instapaper and Readability. It has implemented a new bookmarking feature in that latest Lion builds of Safari that Apple is calling the “Reading List” and can be used by users to save pages for later reading. Apple describes it feature saying:

Reading List lets you collect webpages and links for you to read later. To add the current page to your Reading List, click Add Page. You can also Shift-click a link to quickly add it to the list. To hide and show Reading List, click the Reading List icon (eyeglasses) in the bookmarks bar.

The feature is currently hidden away in the latest OS X Lion build and no mention of the feature has yet been made by Apple in any of its announcements or documentation of Lion. One question certainly is about how robust the feature will be and whether it will become a service that synchronises the bookmarks across devices, including mobile devices. Marco Arment, the creator and developer of Instapaper, appears not to be to worrying about it so far and believes that “Instapaper would still have a market even if Apple implemented Reading List synced to iOS devices.”

[Via MacRumors]


TweetyPop Is Like Time Machine For Twitter

Released yesterday in the App Store at $1.99, TweetyPop wants to offer a different way to read your Twitter timeline and interact with status updates. While regular Twitter clients like Twitter for iPad, Twitterrific and Osfoora are focused on empowering you to read tweets in a vertical timeline which you can interact with to reply, fave tweets, or just discover cool links to check out later, TweetyPop resembles the Mac’s Time Machine in the way it operates: tweets are placed on a three-dimensional space, and you have to move the tweet “bubbles” with your finger to fling them off the screen and move forward in the timeline. Just like Time Machine, you make progress in time: only you have tweets instead of files and you can do stuff with these tweets, too.

The app’s got a traditional list view as well, but that’s not really the point. What TweetyPop wants to achieve – and I guess the reason why the developers created it in the first place – is being the alternative app that lets you sit down and explore Twitter in time. A scrollbar on the right lets you quickly move to a couple of hours ago or a just a few minutes back; big arrows at the bottom allow you to dismiss old tweets and load new ones, or go back in time again. The concept’s really simple if you’re used to Time Machine or Lion’s Versions. In fact, the app’s even got the same space-inspired background that you can’t change. Once you get the hang of it – you can scroll, move tweets around, reply, fave and follow links – you might want to check out the additional icons along the top. These buttons enable you to use Twitter’s usual functionalities like replies, DMs and favorite tweets, as well as lists, trends, or search. In every section, tweets are displayed as bubbles against a Time Machine-esque timeline like in the main page. This might be a little disorienting at first for mentions and direct messages, but I believe TweetyPop wants to disorient you, in a good way. It’s very, very different from anything else I’ve tried on the iPad in a year of existence of the platform.

I also like the fact that the app’s got some interesting options to play with. You can send items to Instapaper or OmniFocus, filter the timeline by “all tweets” or “new tweets only” and enable auto-play to let the app automatically scroll for you and create a slideshow for your tweets. The slideshow speed is configurable in the settings.

At $1.99, I’d give TweetyPop a try if only because it’s different. Sure, it won’t replace Twitter for iPad or Twitterrific, but it has the chance to become that alternative Twitter app that does one thing well and surprises you with its original ideas and interactions. Plus, the time exploration effect for tweets is just neat. Go download the app here. Promo video below.

Read more

Apple Releases New Update for Lion Developer Preview 2

Alongside Xcode 4.1 Developer Preview 4, Apple also released another update for OS X Lion Developer Preview 2. The update weighs at around 1.17 GB and it’s available now in the Software Update control panel. It is recommended for all users running Lion DP 2.

Two weeks ago, Apple did the same and released a new build of Xcode 4.1 and the first update to Lion DP 2. The original Lion Developer Preview 2 was released in late March, and we’re expecting another major update before the WWDC, with a GM seed being seeded to developers in June. If you spot anything new in this update, leave a comment below. We’ll update this post with more notes as further details come in.

Update: MacRumors reports Lion build 11A444d has been seeded to developers.

Update #2: We’re hearing the new Lion update has a snappier Finder, a better UI for deleting apps from the Launchpad, and lots of design tweaks to changes introduced in the previous DP builds.

Xcode 4.1 Developer Preview 4 Released

A few minutes ago Apple released an update to Xcode 4.1, which is required to build apps for OS X Lion. Xcode 4.1 Developer Preview 4 is available now in the Mac Dev Center, and we’re hearing Interface Builder added support for NSPopover and NSWindow animations in this build, among other enhancements and bug fixes.

The first build of Xcode 4.1 was released in February soon after the original Lion Developer Preview, with new builds following the schedule of Lion DP releases and updates.

Kickstarter: Taposé - Bringing Microsoft Courier to the iPad

Remember Microsoft’s Courier booklet PC? It was an interactive tablet with dual-touchscreens and folded like a booklet that Microsoft abandoned about a year and a half ago. Well, Benjamin Monnig and Ricky Drake are taking the idea of the Courier to an iPad app simply called Taposé and have launched a Kickstarter project to help with funding.

Taposé brings Courier functionality to the iPad. The creativity, productivity, and attractive user interface merged into one outstanding product. The split interface design (similar to the Courier idea) allows users to interact with multiple apps simultaneously in one app - Taposé.

Kickstarter video and a “How It Evolved” video after the break.

Read more

Apple Is Now More Profitable Than Microsoft (“Bill, Thank You. The World’s a Better Place”)→

Apple Is Now More Profitable Than Microsoft (“Bill, Thank You. The World’s a Better Place”)

Another remarkable–and remarkably ironic–milestone for Apple, which surpassed Microsoft in market cap last May. It was Microsoft, after all, that breathed new life into a struggling Apple back in 1997 with a $150 million investment in the company (see video below). What was it Bill Gates said at the time? “We think Apple makes a huge contribution in the computer industry. And we think it’s going to be a lot of fun helping out.”

A lot of fun indeed. Paczkowski reports that Microsoft reported a net income of $5.23 billion on Thursday, whereas Apple’s net income was $5.99 billion for the second quarter. Bill Gates was the best thing that could have happened to Microsoft, and I don’t see where Steve Ballmer is bringing fresh blood into the company. The focus has been on “Windows,” and not refactoring to make really great products. Arguably Windows Phone 7 isn’t bad, but is the future of Microsoft to re-skin everything to look Metro? (It feels the hip Zune style is playing a big role in where Microsoft wants to go interface wise - it’s at least fresh and exciting.) Microsoft can’t survive on Microsoft Office, and they need to work hard to remove the “Windows” stigma. Heck, I think Joe Belfiore (who is an excellent image for the company) has a better vision to take Microsoft places out of any of the execs currently running the corporate giant. Just look at where the corporate culture is taking RIM.

Permalink

E-Books Fail To Save Publishers From Revenue Decline

Research published yesterday by IHS iSuppli reveals that the US book publishing industry has reached a “major inflection point” in which there will be a long-term decline in revenue, as e-book sales fail to reach the levels required to compensate the fall in physical book sales.

Over the period of 2010-2014, the book publishing industry will face a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) decline of 3% for both e-books and paper books. This reflects a fall in revenue from $25 billion between 2005 and 2010 to $22.7 billion between 2010 and 2014. Driving the decline is a 5% fall in the CAGR of physical book revenue, which far outweighs the 40% CAGR in e-books. This is mostly due to the fact that the selling prices of e-books are on average 40% lower than those of paper copies.

Dedicated e-readers, however, are forecast to triple in sales from 2010’s 9.7 million sales to over 30 million units in 2014. Previous figures did forecast over 40 million sales, but IHS iSuppli believes devices such as the iPad and other tablets will limit the market for such dedicated e-reading devices. IHS iSuppli also reveals in its analysis that since the introduction of the iPad, e-reader manufacturers have been forced to shrink margins from 35% to far lower levels.

[Via IHS iSuppli]

 

Terra Is A Powerful, Free Alternative To iPad’s Safari

Currently the #1 free app in the iPad App Store, Terra Web Browser is one of those apps I didn’t know if I should take for a spin at first. There’s no shortage of alternative browsers for iPad: from the excellent iCab Mobile (which I use on a daily basis) to more innovative solutions like Sleipnir, it’s very easy to achieve the perfect browsing experience on the tablet if you think Safari is too limited and you’re willing to spend a few extra bucks. It needs to be mentioned, however, that unofficial browsers don’t get access to the latest Nitro Javascript engine goodness, and there’s no way on iOS to set a default browser other than Safari. Still, many users like me feel like having a (perhaps slower as far as webpage rendering goes) browser companion to Safari is necessary for more complex tasks like saving files locally, or displaying open pages as tabs under the main app’s toolbar. Again, iCab is quite possibly the perfect app if you’re looking for desktop-like interactions on the iPad.

Back to Terra, it comes from the guys behind ReaddleDocs and Calendars, and it’s free. I was a little skeptical at first because I really don’t need another browser on my iPad, but for what it does and for its current price, I have to say Terra is a really good app. All those positive ratings in the App Store can’t be completely wrong, after all. The app’s got a minimal interface with tabs, and you can go fullscreen with the tap of a button. Unlike many, many other apps that try to replicate fullscreen mode with semi-transparent icons on top of a webpage, Terra places a single button in the upper right corner. If you want to focus on something you want to read, hit fullscreen and forget about it. Thanks to the implementation of multitouch gestures, you can switch between open tabs with a three-finger swipe. The top toolbar gives you access to the usual functionalities of an iOS browser, such as address bar, refresh button, Google search, settings, bookmarks and action button. In the settings you can set a passcode for the app, choose to navigate in incognito mode (your cookies and history won’t be saved), change the user agent and modify the selected search engine. You can also import bookmarks from your computers, but you’ll have to use iTunes File Sharing for that. Bookmarks, history and “saved files” are located in a bookmarks popover on the left, but I couldn’t figure out how to export my Chrome’s bookmarks bar to Terra. I guess I’ll have to properly edit my exported .html file to make it work. The action button has got some interesting features as well: you can create a new bookmark, AirPrint a page, save a page locally for offline access, mail a link or forward to Safari.

What most impressed me about Terra, though, is how it handles tabs. Not only the app is stable and can handle dozens of open pages just fine (tested last night, 13 open tabs and none of them reloaded after several minutes of navigation), it’s also got a nice popup menu that will show a webpage’s full title as you tap & hold a tab. If you have a lot of open tabs and you can only see the favicons, that’s quite handy. Switching between tabs is not as fast as iCab, but it’s more than acceptable. The animations are smooth and, overall, the system works well.

Terra for iPad was a surprise. The app is free, but it does a lot of things better than many apps priced at $2.99 and above, without sacrificing its minimal approach to UI and responsiveness. Get it here.