Google Instant for Mobile Now Available Worldwide

Back in November Google announced Instant for Mobile, the same instant search for the desktop ported to iOS and Android devices. Instant for Mobile, though, was unveiled as beta and made available only in the U.S. with searches in English language. Google promised Instant for mobile would be released internationally in the coming weeks.

With a brief post on the company’s blog, today Google announced the global release of Instant for mobile, now available in 28 languages and 40 countries worldwide. To use the feature, users will need to run a device with iOS 4 or Android 2.2 and above, visit google.com and tap on the Instant link below the search box to activate it.

In case you missed it, check out Google’s promo video for Instant below.

Apple Releases Aperture 3.1.1 With Bug Fixes, Performance Improvements

Today Apple released a minor update to Aperture 3, which reaches version 3.1.1 and adds a number of fixes and overall performance improvements.

This update fixes an issue with iMovie ‘11 becoming unresponsive while scanning Aperture’s library for videos, incompatibilities with the media browser, issues with cameras causing the app to quit unexpectedly.

Aperture 3.1.1 also contains fixes for web publishing, slideshows and upgrades. More information about the update can be found here. Check out the full changelog below.

[Thanks, Bea!] Read more

Analysts Low-Balling A Device That Doesn’t Exist→

Analysts Low-Balling A Device That Doesn’t Exist

We expect a base case of at least 10 million units at Verizon for [calendar] 2011,” writes Craig, “although we only added 6 and 8 million units to 2011 and 2012, respectively.”

Reid is even more conservative. He’s only raising his 2011 iPhone sales estimates to 63.3 million from 62.5 million, or 800,000 units.

That’s it? 800,000 measly iPhones?

For reasons known only to themselves, analysts who have been breathlessly anticipating a Verizon iPhone are now busy lowering expectations.

I would like to remind these gentlemen that the Verizon iPhone is still, well, a rumor.

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An iPad Rear Camera: Practical or Impractical?

Earlier today we learned some Chinese accessory makers are already producing cases for an alleged “iPad 2”. Those cases clearly show a hole in the upper left corner for a rear-facing camera in the next iteration of Apple’s tablet.

“A rear-facing camera? On the iPad? How are you supposed to take pictures holding the iPad like a camera?” These are the questions going around today, the same we heard when the iPad was first unveiled and, well, lacked a camera.

iLounge posted a follow-up to their iPad 2 case story, with some predictions / hope about a possible rear camera in the iPad 2:

One thing that Apple really enjoys doing, particularly when adding a new feature to an established product, is rethinking things that competitors have attempted and gotten wrong.
[…]
Picture the iPad in an advertisement looking out at a landscape, snapping a picture, and having the landscape appear on the iPad’s screen looking just like what your eyes were seeing. Or taking a picture of a group of people, then becoming the picture frame for the family photo. It sounds so simple, but with the lens on the back of the Galaxy Tab (or, say, the iPod touch) right now, that’s not happening.

Read more

Apple and Costco: It’s (Officially) Over

You may remember there was a time when retail chain Costco was selling iPods. Everything was fine and cool back then, until the day Apple got bigger and started giving iPads away to other retail chains such as Target, WalMart and Sam’s Club – cutting out the old partner Costco. The iPad started appearing everywhere, but not at Costco.

Soon after that, and we’re talking October 2010, Costco started dropping the iPods they had because they were left out of the iPad distribution game. Several reports pointed out that Apple products had gone missing at Costco. Today, the end of the relationship between Apple and Costco is official. Read more

A Beautiful TV Guide For Your iPhone and iPad

I’m thankful for the possibilities offered by today’s technologies, which allow me to ditch the old ways of doing…stuff for more pleasant, rich, interactive and beautiful experiences. Apple’s devices and apps in the App Store surely played a great role in this digital revolution: we don’t buy specific items anymore because there’s an app for that. The last time you bought a radio player? An actual map? A point & shoot camera? Exactly.

Still, there was no “last time” for me when it comes to TV guides. I never bought those magazines that offered monthly and weekly views and summaries of what would be in television – I  just checked TV programming on the internet. Or on my local newspaper. But now I’m ready to step my game up, with an app simply called “TV” and available at .99 cents in the App Store for iPhone and iPad. It’s uncluttered, beautiful, elegant and, finally, it’s something that deeply integrates a TV guide with the information coming from the internet. Read more

Here’s A Way To Keep The App Store App From Closing When Downloading Apps

On the iPhone and iPad, every time you search for an app inside the on-device App Store and click the buy button to download it, the App Store app closes and you’re brought back to the homescreen. For most iOS users, that’s simply wrong: many would like a way to keep pressing the Buy button and “queue” downloads without having to re-open the App Store app every single time.

StayOpened is a new tweak available for free in Cydia that, when activated, modifies the App Store’s default behavior to stay opened even after pressing the Buy button. Simple as that, the download goes in the background and the app will be saved on your homescreen.

Next up, a proper App Store download manager?

Apple Patents A Way To Easily Share iOS Apps & Demos

What’s great about the App Store is that it allows for a one-click purchase experience that makes it easy to download apps. Users can browse the App Store on their Macs, PCs, iPhones and iPads, check on new releases and apps they’ve been keeping an eye on, tap a button and download an app. For free apps and those sold at $.99 , it can become quite an addiction.

The App Store, though, doesn’t allow you to share apps with your friends as easily as it lets you buy them. Sure, there’s the possibility to share apps on Twitter and Facebook from iTunes – but that’s not really the best way to let your friends know about a specific app sold in the App Store, nor does it enable you to provide one of your friends an actual copy of the app.

Apps can’t be shared, and a new patent Apple has been granted, published by Patently Apple, is aimed at fixing that. Read more