I was surprised when I found this app in the App Store last week. Smartr, a free app by Factyle, is a full-featured Twitter client that, unlike the usual Twitterrific or other Twitter apps, is entirely aimed at letting you read in an uncluttered and mobile-friendly view all the links shared in your timeline or lists. In fact, Smartr might just be the closest thing to a “Flipboard for iPhone” we’ve seen yet. Read more
Smartr Twitter App Is Like Flipboard for iPhone
Score Good Grades & Touchdowns with an iPad
Apple is in talks with legislators in Georgia to adopt iPads as textbook replacements in public schools. Think of it - the school system would save a lot of money in textbook costs over one device that could store all the student’s textbooks on one device. Imagine how much lighter your book bag would be every day. NFL coaches must play way too much Madden on their iPads, because now NFL coaches in Dallas are looking at replacing their paper playbooks with iPads as well. Read more
Vivid Gives Your iPhone A Wallpaper A Day
Vivid, a $0.99 app for the iPhone released last week, is a simple utility to get a new wallpaper on your iPhone every day. If you’re that kind of user who’s always searching for new backgrounds and lockscreen walls to make your iPhone a little more personalized, Vivid might just be what you’ve been looking for. Once you fire up the app you’re given a preview of the daily wallpaper, usually a photograph from an internet database the app connects to, which you can save to your Camera Roll, email, send via MMS and print. An archive button in the bottom toolbar lets you see previous images, and you can hit the “Today” button to make sure you’re staying up to date with Vivid’s daily offerings.
Vivid is a simple app that accomplishes the simple task of pushing new wallpapers to your iPhone every day. Go download it here.
A Typographic Review Of The Daily→
A Typographic Review Of The Daily
Fonts In Use shares our same views on the problems with text in The Daily:
Text typography is still the weakness of nearly every iPad publication. Presented with a device that echoes the dimensions of a printed page, designers — especially those in the news world — feel obligated to stick with print conventions: static text set in justified columns. The Daily suffers the same shortcomings. When the columns are wide enough (see above) full justification works. When columns are any narrower (see below), letter- and word-spacing stretches to distraction, even with hyphenation. I admire the way text layouts change when switching between vertical and horizontal orientation — pull quotes often pop in when appropriate — but the typesetting requires more attention. Articles rarely scroll, but when they do, it works just fine. It makes one wonder whether the very short story lengths are a preference of the design staff or an editorial staff unwilling to put more meat on the table.
It also makes me wonder: will we ever see an iPad newspaper / magazine with proper text manipulation? Does’t that fall under the “interactivity” promised by many publications? [via]
Verizon iPhone 4’s Starting to Arrive Today For Those Who Pre-Ordered
If you are one of those who stayed up till 3am last week and ordered the Verizon iPhone you might be one of the lucky first few to get your hands on the long awaited phone. Engadget reports that it is receiving lots of tips that deliveries are happening this Monday morning.
Boy Genius Report also got their Verizon iPhone 4 delivered this morning and they have an unboxing gallery up for your viewing pleasure!
[Via Engadget, Boy Genius Report]
Analysts Share Predictions of Apple’s 2011 Sales and Shipments
If analysts’s predictions are to be believed, the numbers shared this morning by Needham’s Charlie Wolf and Susquehanna’s Jeff Fidacaro are surely interesting. With 16.24 million iPhones and 7.33 million iPads sold in the last quarter, Wolf notes that 300 millions smartphones were sold last year, and Apple’s sales trajectory appears to be “higher than expected”. Wolf estimates 75 million iPhone units will be sold in 2011; last year, he predicted 40 million sales and Apple actually sold more, 47.5 million iPhones. Read more
Last.fm Radio for Mobile Apps To Become Subscription-based Service
Earlier today music streaming service Last.fm announced that, starting February 15th, the radio functionality built into mobile apps (for iPhone and Android) and home entertainment systems will become a subscription-based service with a $3 monthly fee. The service is currently free in various countries but ad-supported; next week, Last.fm Radio for mobile will become ad-free and offer users the possibility to create personalized stations basing on their music preferences.
The service will, however, remain free in some countries and platforms:
Last.fm Radio will remain free on the Last.fm website in the US, UK and Germany and for the US and UK users of Xbox Live and Windows Mobile 7 phones. We’ll also continue to offer radio for free via the Last.fm desktop app.
The mobile music streaming landscape has become very competitive over the past months thanks to services like Spotify and MOG that provide access to large music libraries either for free or through a Premium subscription, like Spotify – which is still struggling to find its way in the U.S. market. And always in the United States, Rdio has recently revamped its website with lots of different features and social functionalities, many of them accessible from the companion iPhone app.
Last.fm Radio won’t provide users a choice to pick tracks on demand, but the offer is attractive if you’re a heavy Last.fm user who has built a music library over the years worth connecting to the Radio service.
2011 WWDC Rumored to be June 5 – 9
Setteb.it has done some investigating and it seems that if Apple follows previous trends from past WWDC’s, it would appear that the 2011 dates for WWDC would be June 5 - 9. The above image gives a rundown of booked events in the Moscone center in downtown San Francisco and the dates of June 5 - 9 are just labelled as a ‘Corporate Meeting’, as Apple has done so in past years.
WWDC, or the World Wide Developers Conference has been the place Apple has revealed it’s new iPhones (except the original) and major updates iOS updates. The keynote on June 5th would also be a really nice tie in for the launch of the iPhone 5! Last years WWDC was on June 7 - 11.
Update: AppleBitch spotted the rumored WWDC dates last week.
iPads to Enter Yet Another Parliament, This Time in Britain
The British House of Lords is set to soon allow it’s parliamentarians to use the iPad and other tablets, smartphones and e-readers, for a one year trial period. This embrace of the iPad is just the latest in a long line of examples where the iPad has gone beyond just a consumer entertainment device to one that is for students, Fortune 500 companies and politicians across the world.
The British parliamentarians will however be restricted to only accessing parliamentary documents and other clearly related files and websites to ensure that the devices do not detract from the key role of the House. This is undoubtedly a rule to try and avoid what happened last week in Italy when a member of their parliament, Simeone Di Cagno Abbrescia was caught browsing certain escort agency websites on the iPad during a parliamentary sitting.