Free to download, pay if you like. Go get it here.
By the way, it’s from the creators of TweetMag.
Short version: The Smiths are now on iTunes, as reported by TUAW. Long version: no, the popular band from Manchester didn’t get the same kind of attention granted to another English band we’ve heard a certain CEO is a big fan of.
Apple’s promotion aside, yeah – you can check out The Smiths on the iTunes Store here. Seven albums are available, a bunch of music videos and before you ask: The Queen Is Dead, Meat Is Murder and The Smiths are all available for purchase. At least the band got a nice profile page.
Perhaps the Smiths’ arrival on iTunes won’t be regarded as a day we’ll never forget by Apple, but Morrissey and Marr are in there, guys. Morrissey and Marr’s band.
I’m off to download now.
The Instagram developers have been pretty busy recently. The service – which is actually “only” an iPhone app for now – skyrocketed to 100,000 users in its first week and rumor has it 1 million people signed up in the first month. That’s quite an achievement, right? There’s more: the developers quickly released updates to improve the performances of the app and fix bugs and also got Twitter to officially support pictures shared through Instagram on Twitter.com inline media viewer.
Put simply: Instagram is doing great. And with today’s update, we bet it’ll be doing even better. Read more
Apple has banned charity donations on its iPhone apps, and nonprofit organizations that rely on monetary gifts to help them with their causes claim this could hurt their business, according to a recent New York Times report.
According to the article, people who use the iPhone apps created by charities or organizations cannot donate money directly through the application, they are re-directed to the organization’s website.
“When you’re popped out of an app, you then have to go through a whole bunch of clicks to make a donation,” Beth Kanter, CEO of consulting firm for nonprofits Zoetica, told the Times. “It’s cumbersome and it doesn’t have to be.”
She plans on replacing her iPhone with an Android device, which allows app users to donate directly through apps. Kanter has started an online petition to get the attention of Apple to convince them a policies change.
An Apple spokesperson declined to explain Apple’s reasoning for this ban but told the NY Times, “We are proud to have many applications on our App Store which accept charitable donations via their Web sites.”
Earlier this year, after the earthquake in Haiti, Apple asked for donations for the American Red Cross through iTunes, establishing what some considered as a model for iPhone-assisted donations. That increased speculation that the real issue was money.
Apple takes 30 percent of purchases made from the App Store, and that would be frowned upon if it were to be taken out of a charitable donation.
I can understand why Apple won’t let charity donations work through iPhone apps - they set a precedent in their rules and if you bend it for one group, how many others will also try something similar. A few extra taps aren’t going to ruin your experience or busy day.
[via The New York Times]
[MacStories Interviews is a new series of email interviews and conversations with with well-known developers, designers, bloggers, journalists, geeks.]
Please welcome Mike Rundle, designer and web, iOS and Mac developer. You can follow him on Twitter as @flyosity. The interview was conducted from October 12th to December 10th.
- Tell me a little about yourself: who are you, what do you do, etc…?
Hey there! I’m Mike Rundle and I do a number of different things. First, I’m a designer. I’ve been designing websites, applications, blogs and icons for many years. Second, I’m a web developer and have been writing HTML, CSS, JavaScript and PHP for a long, long time as well. Third, I’m a Mac, iPhone and iPad developer and have been learning and using Objective-C and the Cocoa APIs since around 2008. I’m the author of Beak, a Mac Twitter app that’s no longer in development, and am also the author of Digital Post, an iPad newspaper app. Recently I’ve been doing a lot of writing and am the author of a chapter on mobile interface design that’s part of the next book from Smashing Magazine. I’ve also been busy reviewing and editing iPhone and iPad books for some of the larger tech publishers.
At the moment I’m working on a project I’ve been looking forward to for awhile: a series of highly-detailed guides that will teach designers how to actually code the interfaces for iPhone and iPad apps. So many designers out there have such great visual design talent but can’t actually put an app together due to a lack of programming knowledge. I’m fortunate to have both design and programming skills so I really want to reach out to my fellow pixel pushers out there and get them in Xcode building cool apps. These guides will also be useful for developers because I go through every step of the design process as well so I hope they’ll also pick up a thing or two. Oh, and after these guides are done I’ll start in on the myriad iPhone and iPad app ideas I have, starting with a really unique puzzle game that’s been in my head for 2 years. Never a dull moment! Read more
We have got several tips today pointing us to the fact that many users are unable to log in MobileMe.com with their existing passwords. The problem, also noticed by 9to5mac and Italian blog SetteB, seems to affect users with short and non-alphanumeric passwords. Word is that Apple silently reset these passwords without telling these users that they would need to create a new one before logging in MobileMe. Read more
As noted by MacRumors, HP issued a firmware update last night to extend AirPrint support (which as you may remember, used to work only on certain HP printers still listed on Apple’s website) to 6 more of its Officejet printers.
Thus, AirPrint is now compatible out of the box with the following models:
AirPrint used to work on any printer shared through a Mac or PC in a local network in the first OS X 10.6.6 developer betas. As 10.6.6 went public, Apple pulled the feature and made AirPrint compatible only with selected HP printers.
A few hacks have surfaced to bring the functionality back, but Steve Jobs promised Apple’s working on making AirPrint better, although they need more time to achieve stable and fast driverless printing.
Apple’s got more than 200 retail stores worldwide now, and those stores are usually crowded with people checking out iPads, iPhones and MacBooks. Most of all, people who go to the Apple Store sometimes just want the customer care and experience granted by the super-trained Apple employees – this is true in the US, Europe, China, everywhere.
Yet, even a tech giant like Apple started small and iterated from there. The first Apple Store, opened in May 19, 2001 in the 30-year old Glendale Galleria in California has become a cult destination for Apple fans (or, “Appleheads”) in the United States, Reuters reports. Read more
Welcome to MacStories’ 2010 Roundup! In this new series, we collect the best apps released in 2010 for the Mac, iPhone and iPad – apps we have probably already featured here on MacStories. Only the best apps, both free and paid. Apps you shouldn’t miss.
Apple’s iPod app for the iPhone and iPad is simple, effective and pretty to look at, but sometimes I want more from my music. I want up-to-date information about the artists I’m listening to, I want to discover new songs without having to search Google – I want something different than a list of music synced from my hard drive. If music’s an experience, than I want a digital music experience on iOS.
In this post, first of the MacStories 2010 Roundup series, we have collected the top 5 apps to listen to music 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 the best of the best to your attention, not just the “pretty good” ones.
So jump after the break, and check our Top 5 list of music apps for iOS. We heard it’s also possible to listen to The Beatles with them. Read more
