Google Planning Digital Newsstand, Apple To Launch Subscriptions “Early This Year”

According to the sources close to the Wall Street Journal, Google is in talks with major publishers like Time Inc., Condé Nast and Hearst Corp. to discuss the launch of a digital newsstand for magazines and newspapers that would run on the Android mobile operating system. The move, still in its early planning stages, would be Google’s direct answer to Apple, which has long been at the center of digital newsstand rumors and iTunes recurring subscription speculations. Google’s newsstand, either based on the existing Market or a new infrastructure, would allow Android users to read digital content on the go. Rumors point out to Google willing to share subscribers’ data with publishers. Read more

Ecoute 2.0 - Small, Powerful Alternative to iTunes

Just like any other alternative to iTunes on the Mac, Ecoute has been around for a while. Since Apple shipped its very own music player and digital hub years ago, many developers have tried to come up with original solutions for all those who couldn’t stand iTunes. And as iTunes grew bigger to accommodate apps, books, podcasts and just about anything you can put on an iPhone or iPod, thousands of users and even more developers started feeling the need of a minimal music player, again. What began as a hobby for a limited number of users (“let’s not use iTunes for music”) evolved into a real segment of a market willing to keep iTunes closed to listen to music libraries. And I understand the position of the users and developers that first thought about jumping out of iTunes: why would one need to stare at iTunes and all its features and options all the time, when you just need to listen to some music?

In spite of iTunes becoming many people’s less used music player over time, the apps that have surfaced in the past years that allow us to just play music are, in most cases, nothing but standalone iTunes controllers that strip away the clutter and focus on albums, artists and songs. They fetch a user’s library, take the music out of it and display it into a minimal, sometimes non-existent, user interface. Coversutra, Bowtie: they are two popular iTunes controllers for OS X that have gained support for other features such as last.fm scrobbling and iOS remote streaming. But in the end, they rely on iTunes.

So did Ecoute 1.0, and so does the just-released Ecoute 2.0. Ecoute is a well-known music player for OS X that plays music from iTunes, but doesn’t require you to keep iTunes running in the background. It automatically finds a user’s iTunes library file and takes content from there. It comes with a neat desktop widget for quick play / pause actions, but it’s also got its dedicated interface. Ecoute 2.0 depends on iTunes, but it adds great value while giving you a reason to stay out of Apple’s software at the same time. Read more

Monetizing The iPhone’s Photo Apps→

Monetizing The iPhone’s Photo Apps

The Wall Street Journal has a piece on the difficulties faced by developers when trying to make apps like Instagram, Hipstamatic and PicPlz profitable. Speaking of Hipstamatic:

Since Hipstamatic’s launch in December 2009, the $1.99 app has been downloaded more than 1.7 million times. The app allows users to choose different lenses, films and flashes. The firm charges 99 cents for a package of add-ons such as infrared.

The company generates a third of its revenue from those extras, says CEO Lucas Buick, and is profitable. In September, it launched a service where users can send in photos and pay a fee for printed copies.

The app has been named “iPhone App of the Year” by Apple and it’s got lots of additional stuff and features to unlock with in-app purchase. The app is a one-time $1.99 purchase, but developers can keep the money coming in with updates and new items to buy. So far, it seems like this business model is working.

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Say “Cheers” With IKEA’s iPhone App

Feeling a little bit old with all that wooden furniture and lack of digital goodness, IKEA decided to develop apps for the iPhone. That’s right, but Swedish retail chain’s first attempt to enter the App Store market is far from being a furniture catalogue app. Instead, the developers at IKEA created an app to have a toast with someone and share the moment on Twitter, Facebook and the service’s online gallery.

The app, called IKEA Skal! (which stands for “Cheers”) lets you choose between different glasses (perhaps sold at IKEA?) and a drink you’d like to toast with (beer, wine, champagne). On screen, you’ll see the glass and the background captured by your iPhone’s camera – Skal works well with the iPhone 4 but it’s a little slow on the 3GS. As you’re ready with your glass and you like the background for your toast, find someone to share the moment with and toast with your phones. The app will play the sound of glasses, exchange contact information automatically and even snap a picture of the toast as it happens. You can then share the pic on Facebook and Twitter, send it to IKEA’s photo gallery and even browse other people’s toasts.

See? IKEA can make pretty cool apps. Skal is available for free here. Check out the promo video below. Read more

Turn Your iPhone Into A Vintage Polaroid

If your iPhone, besides being a phone, also happens to have become your best camera and you fancy some old-style gadgetry in your pockets, perhaps you’d like to consider Ryan Astle’s Photoroid skins.

Available in iPhone, iPad, Blackberry and Evo models, the skin costs $15 for the iPhone and $20 for the tablet. It’s made of 2 pieces of art for the front and back of the iPhone, it really resembles an old Polaroid camera and, personally, I think it’s got something that reminds me of the Instagram icon as well.

With all these apps that apply vintage effects to your photos (and videos, too), the Photoroid skin seems appropriate. [Gizmodo via Infectious]

MacStories’ 2010 Roundup: Top 8 Apps for Kids

Welcome to another MacStories’ 2010 Roundup! In this new series, we collect the best apps released in 2010 for the Mac, iPhone and iPad — apps we have or will feature here on MacStories. Only the best apps, both free and paid. Apps you shouldn’t miss.

Do your kids often ask you do play with your iPads or iPhones? I know my 3.5 year old son does, he’s always asking me! Entertain your little ones with these iOS apps and games, great for toddlers, preschoolers, and big kids at heart.

Why 8? Because we tried and tried to narrow it down to 5 but we couldn’t do it! So, we have collected our top 8 apps for kids released this year. We think they are great apps you should go install right now. We could have included more, but we wanted to bring some of the best to your attention, not just the “pretty good” ones.

So jump after the break, and check our Top 8 list of kid’s apps for iOS.

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The iPhone Heart Monitor

Modern technology has changed so much in just the last few years; everything has gotten smaller, cheaper and better. It’s really amazing, when I was a child in the 80s, everything was still analog, big and had square edges. A 2 foot by 1 foot ‘ghetto blaster’ was considered portable music and a portable TV was black and white and weighed 20 pounds.

The future is here now and Apple’s iPhone is the flux capacitor to the future, or at least in this case an Electrocardiography device (ECG). This is by far one of the coolest implementations of an iPhone and a third party accessory. For one thing, it’s not just for the medical world, it will also be a consumer accessory as well; the iphonECG is going to officially be announced ay CES next week. Attach the iphonECG case, open the monitoring app, and place the contacts against your chest (heart). Remember when I said everything gets “smaller, cheaper and better”? Here’s one of the first ECG devices ever created.

Welcome to 2011: A Tech Odyssey.

[via MobileCrunch]