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Buddies For iPad Provides A Better Way To Check On Your Facebook Contacts

At this point, I guess you’ve figured out there’s no official Facebook iPad app nor does Zuckerberg plan to tell his team to start developing one. Or perhaps we just have to wait a little bit more, as Facebook is currently focused on mobile devices and the iPad isn’t exactly a mobile device. No matter how you look at it, there is no Facebook for iPad and we have to rely on 3rd party offers when it comes to status updates and photo galleries on world’s most crowded social network running on the iPad.

Up until now, Friendly for Facebook has been the most successful unofficial app for iPad to land in the App Store, and sales of the app sky-rocketed with the recent release of a major update. A new 3rd party Facebook app was released yesterday, it’s called Buddies and simplifies the way you can check on your Facebook contacts on the iPad. All wrapped up in an interesting native interface with noteworthy features and curious navigation schemes. Let’s take a look at it. Read more

So That’s an iPhone Inside A Keyboard

Ever wanted to be able to have your iPhone sitting next to your keyboard? I mean, not really just next to your keyboard – docked into your keyboard. No? Come on. Think about the possibilities: you could easily jump from keyboard keys to the iPhone’s multitouch gestures, flick through your lolcat photo collection while doing some serious emacs text editing or constantly pinch and zoom on that small screen when you’re feeling bored. Still thinking you don’t want one?

Well in all seriousness, I’m not sure what this Omnio WOWKeys keyboard for iPhone (3GS and 4) is supposed to do either. Engadget reports:

What you’re looking at is a Made for iPhone keyboard called WOWKeys from Omnio. The $100 USB keyboard / iPhone (3GS or 4) dock is Mac or PC compatible (note the cohabitation of the Windows flag and Command key in the prototype images after the break) featuring 15 hotkeys designed for iPhone use.

And they said iOS devices didn’t come with physical keyboards.

Itsy Twitter Client for Mac Adds Custom Themes, Gesture Navigation

We have covered Itsy, a minimal Twitter client for Mac by mowglii, quite a few times in the past. What’s great about Itsy is that it’s simple and focused, taking the clutter way to let you concentrate on what really matters: the tweets.

The old 1.x version was falling under the weight of Twitter incompatibilities and different APIs – it needed a major update.

Last week developer mowglii released the long-awaited 2.0 version of the app, which adds support for custom themes (you can select them in the Preferences), tweet deletion, support for three-finger swipe gesture to navigate (Snow Leopard-only) and lots of bug fixes and overall improvements. Itsy was indeed very popular thanks to its community of designers and users who came up with stunning mods of the original interface. Now theming is officially supported in the app. Great news.

Itsy is free. You should give it a try.

ZTE Peel Launching On Sprint November 14th, Doesn’t Support The New iPod Touch

As BGR reported last week, the ZTE Peel 3G case for iPod Touch will indeed be available on Sprint starting November 14th at $29.99 per month with 1GB of included data usage. As you can see in a photo just posted by BGR:

The ZTE Peel will be available in retail stores at $79.99. In case you don’t know what this accessory does, it’s basically a case that comes with a built-in SIM which allows you to turn an iPod Touch into some sort of iPhone with 24/7 mobile internet connectivity. You’ll be able to make calls using services like Fring or Skype from anywhere.

The bad news? It doesn’t support the latest iPod Touch models, the 4th generation ones. The photo clearly shows “supports 2 & 3 generation”, and we can only assume the problem was with the camera on the latest iPod Touch. Or maybe they thought the installed user base of 4th gen iPod Touches was too small to ensure compatibility.

Did they think about the upcoming holiday season, though?

The Washington Post App for iPad Now Available, Free Access Until February 2011

An official Washington Post app for iPad was approved earlier today, and it’s available for free in the App Store here. What’s so interesting about it? Just like the official New York Times app, full access is granted until February 2011 (NYT app grants fere full access until January 2011) for free. No need to submit payment information, but an existing washingtonpost.com account is already required.

You can also create an account in-app. After February 2011, the service will go paid (with a so-called “paywall”) and you’ll need to have a subscription to enjoy the contents of The Washington Post on the iPad. Read more

Apple Considering Scrollable Menus and Toolbars For Lion and iOS 5?

A new European patent filing discovered by Patently Apple details how Apple might implement different interaction methods for menus and toolbars in the next version of OS X, Lion, and in the future iteration of their mobile operating system, iOS. The patent, filed in Q2 1010 and published last week, shows two specific models: scrollable menus and toolbars.

The main concept behind the patent is that menus and toolbars take too much space on screen, and the large majority of users don’t need to look at these elements all the time. To save space and implement multitouch gesture-based navigation in menus, there could be a way to scroll through toolbar icons and dropdown menus both on the desktop and iPhone / iPad. Read more

Reminder: .Mac HomePage Shutting Down Today

As reported in early October, Apple is shutting down the .Mac HomePage service today. The .Mac HomePage service was a feature that allowed users to publish webpages using their .mac account. The feature was first discontinued in July 2009 (users were unable to create new content); today Apple is pulling the plug on the service by disabling viewing of already-published content.

The files won’t be permanently deleted, though. As Apple explains in a support document:

Can friends and family still view my published pages?

After November 8, 2010, all photos, movies, and files shared using .Mac HomePage will be unavailable for viewing on the web. Web Pages published using iWeb or Aperture will not be affected.

Will my content be deleted after November 8, 2010?

No. All of your content is still on your iDisk and can be accessed by going to me.com/idisk and clicking Home in the sidebar. The HTML files that make up your site can be found in the Sites folder, and any pictures or movies you have used for your pages can be found in the Pictures and Movies folders respectively. You must remain an active MobileMe member to access your iDisk.

Apple’s current sync and web publishing solution, MobileMe, retails at $99 per year and comes with a 60-day free trial. We highly recommend it as a way to sync information across devices (bookmarks, settings, email accounts, calendar), although we’re huge fans of Dropbox when it comes to file storage.

Korean Carrier Allegedly Confirms CDMA iPhone Rumors

According to The Korea Herald, Choi Joo-sick, senior vice president of Korean carrier LG Uplus, confirmed in a conference call last that they’re “in talks with Apple” for  CDMA iPhone.

LG Uplus Corp., the smallest mobile- phone operator in Korea, said it is in talks with Apple Inc. to offer the CDMA iPhone in the domestic market. LG Uplus is negotiating about a change to the electronic circuits to make CDMA iPhones for the company, senior vice president Choi Joo-sick said on a conference call, available on the company’s website.

The company said Friday that its third-quarter earnings tumbled 94.9 percent from a year ago on increased marketing expenses.

Much has been said about the alleged CDMA iPhone / Verizon iPhone set to ship in early 2011 on multiple carriers worldwide. Korean rumors follow the speculations that Apple might be willing to implement CDMA technology as a way to reach more users and gain more market share in Asian countries.

BGR reported last month that the rumored Verizon iPhone has hit “testing stage” and it’s basically ready for massive production.

“Hardly Anyone” Was Buying Xserves According to Steve Jobs

French website MacGeneration got a screenshot from a reader of an email he received from Steve Jobs. We’re used to this stuff, right? People sending el Jobso angry emails and complaints, getting “yep” and “nope” as response, leaving us to do the hard job to figure out what the chief really meant.

So this time, it’s all about Xserve. Apple announced last week they would discontinue it, but it’ll be available until January 2011 nevertheless. According to this latest email from Steve Jobs, Apple made this decision as “hardly anyone” was buying Xserves.

The “premature death” of Xserve left many IT guys with doubts and skepticism in regards to Apple’s plans for large and small businesses.