Apple Posts Support Document About Daylight Saving Time Bug on iOS 4.1

As noted by MacRumors, earlier today Apple posted a new support document detailing the issues experienced by many users with the Clock app on iOS 4.1 after the switch to DST. It happened in New Zealand back in October and Europe earlier this week, but Apple still hasn’t released a firmware update to address the issue.

It’s very likely that iOS 4.2 –now in Gold Master version, final release really around the corner – will put an end to this annoying bug.

From the support document:

In some regions, shortly before or after the daylight saving time (DST) change, repeating alarms created in the Clock app may work incorrectly.

To resolve this behavior for existing alarms, set the repeat interval to Never. You will need to reset these alarms for each day you need them.

After November 7th, 2010, you can set your alarms to repeat again.

Sneak Peek: Discourse, Beautiful Dictionary App for iPhone

A few days ago I stumbled upon the preview page of Discourse, an upcoming iPhone app developed by Emilio Peláez (the developer of Notified, available in Cydia) and designed by Mathieu White which, according to the website, aims at being a unique and fresh dictionary app for iPhone. Can a dictionary app be unique? – I asked on Twitter. What could a developer ever do to make sure his take on digital dictionaries – a rather boring subject, one might think – feels fresh and innovative?

I got into Discourse’s beta group and Emilio was kind enough to let me talk about the app on MacStories. I’ve been running the app on my iPhone since last night and, admittedly, they’re building something that feels fresh, beautiful and, to an extent, unique. Here’s a sneak peek. Read more

Elements 1.5: Sub-folders, Markdown Preview, Better File Saving

Second Gear’s Elements for iPhone and iPad has been updated to version 1.5 today, a major revision of the popular Dropbox-based text editor that adds lot of new (and much requested) features together with a plethora of bug fixes. We previously covered Elements here and here.

First off, Elements now supports sub-folders and Markdown previews. Sub-folders are really a huge deal for many users out there, as now you’ll be able to hook Elements up with other Dropbox-based apps that organize their documents with a similar structure, such as Plaintext. The family of Dropbox text editors keeps on getting more connected and better integrated.

For me, however, the really huge deal is the improved Markdown support: the app can now view Markdown formatted files (.md, .markdown, .mdown, .mdwn) and open Markdown files from external applications that support the “Open in…” feature. Similarly to Second Gear’s own MarkdownMail, Elements can now generate a live HTML preview of Markdown formatted text for you to instantly check on. Read more

T-Mobile Makes Fun of Apple’s FaceTime With “Get a Mac”-like Ad

With its latest ad to promote the MyTouch 4G, T-Mobile makes fun of Apple’s FaceTime restrictions (it only works on wifi, remember?) and blames AT&T for slowing down the entire iPhone 3G experience.

In the ad, very similar to the old “Get a Mac” ones, a young lady says “Hi. I’m a T-Mobile MyTouch 4G.”, then the camera reveals a man who says “And I’m an iPhone 4.” Another man is hanging on his back –he’s the old AT&T network. The ad goes on to say that Apple’s FaceTime works “everywhere there’s wifi, like in airports”, while you can make video calls anywhere with T-Mobile’s strong 4G network.

It’s a clever ad, and I like it. [via TUAW]

iCloud: More Than Media→

iCloud: More Than Media

Justin Williams:

I’m hoping for an official suite of APIs and services that sync and store the application data all your iPhone and Mac apps to the cloud. Anytime you create a new blog post in MarsEdit, it automatically saves the data to the cloud. On your iPhone and beat another level of Angry Birds? It saves those changes to the cloud.
Whenever you purchase a new Mac or iPhone, you’ll just sign in with your Apple ID and start pulling the data in automatically from Apple’s cloud services. Google already offers a portion of this idea for their Android platform. Whenever you purchase a new Android phone, all your data is restored as soon as you sign in with your Google ID.

That certainly makes more sense than a Dropbox-like solution which would require users to mess with files and folders. That’s why Apple didn’t buy Dropbox.

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Ben Brooks’ MacBook Air Review→

Ben Brooks’ MacBook Air Review

The 13 though is more like a sports sedan: it will do most everything that you do in your SUV, but there will be things that it can’t do as well. Things like huge Costco or Ikea trips, off-roading, towing a boat and driving in the snow. Most people though will never use their SUV for such things, making the extra money they paid for it a waste. The few times that you may do those things you seem to always find a way to get by without the SUV.

If you only read one in-depth review today, make it this one.

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Newsday’s New iPad Ad Doesn’t Really Impress

This is what happens when Apple legal forces you to take a genius commercial down and release a more “normal” one. In case you missed Newsday’s story, they once released a clever commercial in which a man killed a fly using an iPad instead of a regular newspaper. The iPad, of course, was shattered.

That ad was aimed at proving that tablets are anything like old media, and you shouldn’t think of them in that way. Like I said, a clever advertisement that went viral. But Apple didn’t like and Newsday was forced to take the ad down (copies can still be found on Youtube, though).

Now Newsday is coming back with a new ad, but it doesn’t really impress much. There are some trippy animations here and there, as RazorianFly also notices, but the style and cleverness of the first attempt is far, far away.

This is exactly what happens when Apple legal messes up with your stuff. We’ve embedded the old ad below. Read more

Project Sword Renamed “Infinity Blade”, Coming This Holiday

Remember Project Sword by Epic Games? Yes, that impressive tech demo we saw at Apple’s last music event on stage, the one that made our jaws drop due to that stunning graphics, light effects and animations. The same day, we were also able to download a demo of the demo, called “Epic Citadel” and based on the same graphic engine (the Unreal Engine 3 for mobile devices) but limited to a single town without any people and / or enemies.

Today Epic Games announced the final title of the game, which is now dubbed “Infinity Blade” and will be available on iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch this holiday season. Infinity Blade will feature both a single player and a multiplayer mode based on Game Center, RPG elements, even better graphics than before and free updates with new features in the next months.

The developers worked hard for 4 months on the development of Infinity Blade and, hopefully, we’ll enjoy the great results of the Unreal Engine 3 together with an equally great gameplay in a few weeks.

Check out the press release, screenshots and the old demo video of Project Sword below. Read more

John Gruber On The Idea of iPad Apps Running on Mac OS X→

John Gruber On The Idea of iPad Apps Running on Mac OS X

I can prove it, practically, that iPad apps aren’t going to run on the Mac as a standard feature. iOS apps do run on Mac OS X, today, in the iPhone/iPad emulator that ships with the iOS developer kit. Ends up they’re just not that pleasant to use on a Mac. Gestures that are natural and fun with direct touch are awkward and clumsy using a mouse or touchpad.

And we thought this idea of iOS apps running as “widgets” on the desktop had been buried in the darkest corners of the blogosphere. Turns out some people are still claiming it’d be a “great addition to OS X”. Too bad Apple is not Adobe, and they don’t care about “cross-platform interoperability” as much as they care about “single-platform excellence”.

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