NoteNow Brings Sticky Notes To The Lock Screen

Even though I have an iPhone, an iPad and two Macs syncing my tasks and projects all day long through OmniFocus’ online service, I often forget about stuff. The most trivial things, like buy some iTunes credit or check on the car’s gas. I guess the reason is that I’ve never settled to bring these common, real-life tasks and activities into my GTD workflow, which is mainly set up for work purposes. I know it’s wrong as GTD should be for everything and anything, still it happens.

NoteNow, a simple $0.99 app developed by Manolo Sanudo, aims at fixing this issue with world’s most popular organization system: sticky notes. Who hasn’t written down things on a sticky note at least once? I have. And boy, you can trust sticky notes when they’re in sight. They make you remember you have to do stuff by looking at you in the eye. But how could you ever make sticky notes work on an iPhone, where there’s no desktop to attach notes to and Apple doesn’t want developers to use private APIs to enable secret, and perhaps dangerous for the iOS experience, features? Read more

Behind The Scenes Of The Verizon iPhone

Bloomberg reports of some interesting details behind the Apple / Verizon deal that made possible for the two companies to announce the iPhone 4 on Verizon starting February 10. The Verizon iPhone, as you may know, was one of the most anticipated devices in the United States because of the 4-year long AT&T exclusivity and the reported poor performances of the carrier in some areas.

First off, about the lack of Verizon branding on the CDMA iPhone 4, it looks like Verizon simply had to get along with it as Apple never puts logos on their devices and they really wanted to have the device in their portfolio anyway.

To reach a deal, Apple and Verizon had to reconcile different approaches to branding. Verizon puts its stamp on other manufacturers’ devices, including phones from Research In Motion Ltd. and Motorola. By contrast, only Apple’s name appears on the iPhone.

“They don’t put a lot of logos on their phones,” McAdam said in the interview. “So that wasn’t a major issue for us.”

Watching the success of the AT&T-Apple partnership may have led Verizon to accept a similar deal, said Jean-Louis Gassee, a former Apple executive who is now a venture capitalist at Allegis Capital in Palo Alto, California.

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Seas0nPass Jailbreak for Apple TV 4.1.1 Released

The FireCore developers (the same guys behind aTV Flash) have released a jailbreak tool for the Apple TV 2nd generation called “Seas0nPass”. This jailbreak tool, like the popular Pwnage Tool app, can create a custom firmware file for the device to load and install non-Apple approved apps. Seas0nPass has been created exclusively for the Apple TV and also comes with an option to perform an easy “tethered boot” – a procedure that requires you to boot the Apple TV plugged in your computer. Seas0nPass lets you do that with a few clicks, in a simple and minimal user interface.

To use Seas0nPass, Mac OS X 10.6 is required. A Windows version will come out soon and, again, this only works on the 2nd gen Apple TV – don’t try to use with any other iOS device. Seas0nPass is free and open source, you can download the source code here. For instructions on how to use the app to jailbreak your Apple TV, see here.

Google Places App for iPhone Now Available

Earlier today, Google released its official Places app for the iPhone and iPod touch. The app is already live in iTunes and available for free here. Just like on Android, Google Places with Hotpot service helps you discover nearby places such as restaurants and cafes you might like. Google Places, though, not only does find nearby places, it also does take a guess at the best place for you with personalized search results.

You can rate places and build custom searches so the app will learn from your preferences; rating a place is easy and fast thanks to a Rate Now button that you can tap on at any time. The more places you rate and the more Hotpot reviews you write, the more Google Places will learn from your tastes and habits and send personalized recommendations to you. As for social features built into the app:

If you want to make things even tastier, just visit google.com/hotpot from your desktop computer. Here you can add friends to the mix and quickly rate all the places you already know. Once you’ve added friends, you’ll find your results seasoned not just with reviews from around the web and recommendations based on your own personal taste, but also with your friends’ opinions too.

Google Places for iPhone seems like a nice first version of a service that Google is testing to bring custom, personalized search results and recommendations to the web and mobile devices. The interface design of the app seems to be based on the usual schemes adopted by Google in all their iOS clients. If you feel like giving Places and Hotpot for iPhone a try, the app is available here.

Project Mag for iPad Issue 2 Now Available

Project, the iPad-only magazine from Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, was off to a good start when it was first released and then, pretty much like any other iPad magazine, it quickly disappeared from the App Store charts. There was a lot of excitement and anticipation around Branson’s Project, mainly because it was the first magazine to be built entirely with the iPad in mind and because, well, anything from Branson is a little bit cool.

While we didn’t exactly go crazy over the first issue of Project (it had a great animated cover, and some fancy graphics here and there inside the magazine), perhaps the second issue, released today, will get us a bit more excited.  Issue 2 of Project Mag has another animated cover and interview featuring the star of Born Survivor/Man vs Wild Bear Grylls. Read more

iPad Simulator Crafted In JS & CSS3 Works - Has Multitasking

Put this on the top of the, “Most impressive things I’ve seen today!” list. Alex Wolkov has taken an iPad, and simulated it virtually with JS & CSS3. Launch apps, surf inside the iPad with a web browser, and even launch the multi-task bar with the home button. Quit apps, delete others, and shuffle icons around just as you would on a real iPad. This is all in web code, and the project is open-sourced on github so you can take a gander. Fair warning, make sure you have a relatively good screen resolution on your monitor so you can view the iPad in full while you play around.

[iPad Simulator via Forrst]

Apple Stores Everywhere: List Of Store Confirmations To Open 2011

With over 150 store openings as of last September, you can expect the 2011 Apple Store season to be huge. Where’s the money? Apple must be a fan of MacStories, because Cupertino will be brining our international audience (Italy in particular) a little slice of home throughout the year. That’s not to say new stores won’t open in the United States (New York’s pretty lucky to be getting yet another store), and we advise you to check past the break for a run down of expected store openings according to ifoAppleStore.com’s latest report.

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Jon Stewart Is Pretty Excited About The Verizon iPhone

You know people have been waiting for the iPhone to lose exclusivity to AT&T when even The Daily Show covers the announcement of the Verizon iPhone. Indeed, Jon Stewart’s segment about the iPhone 4 now available on another – better, according to him – carrier perfectly shows all the excitement that has surrounded this historic announcement over the past years.

Stewart says that to be part of the iPhone community he has sacrificed the ability to make actual phone calls for many years. In the name of carrying around photos, videos, music and a compass, he – and millions of other users like him – stayed on AT&T to have an iPhone. But starting February 10, it will be all over.

So jump after the break, and check out The Daily Show’s take on the Verizon iPhone. [via CrunchGear] Read more

Homebrew Satarii Star iPhone Dock Follows Your Every Move

A couple of pals under the name Satarii have been working out of a garage-office for the past year perfecting the Satarii Star, an iPhone dock that follows your every move. In conjunction with a wearable tracker, the Satarii is a rotary base that follows you around around a scene such as your living-room. FaceTime conversations would be rather awesome when you could grab a cup of coffee without having to worry about the ol’ shaky cam, and imagine the possibilities in self-producing quality video? Imagine the MacStories reviews that could come of this thing! We’re pretty excited about this neat gadget because it’s a novel idea. Support the team and help Satarii reach their goal of $20,000 so we can see this thing get some legs.

[IndieGoGo via Engadget]