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RIM Releases SDK and PlayBook Simulator for Mac

If you’re a developer, you have a Mac and you happen to have some interest in RIM’s future plans for its Tablet OS and the first product that will support it, the PlayBook, then you might want to check what we have here: a Tablet OS SDK and Simulator to build and test apps for the PlayBook on OS X.

Don’t get yourself all excited just yet, though: this first release of the SDK allows you to build apps based on Adobe’s AIR technology, as support for Flash and HTML5 is “coming soon”. Anyway, I assume the PlayBook does exist now.

Press release below. Read more

Fast Copy Makes Copy & Paste on iOS Faster | Cydia

Remember when iPhone users couldn’t copy and paste on their devices? Back in the iPhone OS 1.x and 2.x days, that was one of the most serious issues Apple had to face when haters attacked. Back in those same days, Cydia developers released independent implementations of copy & paste to enable users to have a better workflow.

Apple then introduced copy & paste through a popup menu in iPhone OS 3, and Ryan Petrich released its popular Action Menu hack in Cydia to make it better, with more features and more powerful. Now, with iOS 4 it’s time to make copy & paste faster. Read more

Twitterrific 4 for Mac: A Sneak Peek

As promised last weekend on Twitter, the Iconfactory has just posted the very first sneak peek of Twitterrific 4.0 for Mac, a major new version of the popular Twitter client.

There’s no release date or pricing info yet, but the app will require Snow Leopard due to some of its new features and, from the looks of it, it appears that Twitterrific for iOS highly inspired the development of this new version.

Back to the Mac, indeed.

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“A Sledgehammer Called OmniFocus”→

“A Sledgehammer Called OmniFocus”

Finding the right tool to keep track of your projects sometimes feels more like a journey than a destination. Many task-management apps have come and gone (some of us have tried them all). But in the past few years, as task-management software has increased its footprint on the Mac, the one app which has stayed in active development and which continues to grow and improve is OmniFocus.

Insightful, in-depth, must-read OmniFocus review and analysis by Shawn Blanc. You can save it in Instapaper, or create an OmniFocus action just for this piece.

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Hollywood Is Hooked on iPads→

Hollywood Is Hooked on iPads

The actress Dana Delany, who will star in “Body of Proof,” a coming ABC drama, said she now has revisions sent to her digitally. “I think it’s the greatest invention in years,” Ms. Delany said. (The iPad will be a fixture in the medical examiner room on “Body of Proof,” which will start in early 2011.)

Mr. Orci’s iPad has served as the daily “call sheet” with the day’s instructions; acted as a map in an unfamiliar location; and allowed him to keep tabs on “Fringe” and “Hawaii Five-0,” two shows he helps produce.

Content consumption, indeed.

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Backflip Studios Making Half A Million Dollars Per Month With In-Game Ads

So much for in-app advertising being a non-sustainable business mode. Backflip Studios, developers of the popular Paper Toss and Ninjump games for iPhone, is making half a million dollars per month from in-game ads alone. The company dramatically increased ad revenue since last May, when they confirmed they had managed to make $1 million in six months.

Backflip generated more than 45 million installs on iOS, 5.5 million on Android devices.

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VLC for iPhone Now Available

VLC, the popular media player already ported by developer Applidium to the iPad, is now available as a universal app for iPhone. The latest 1.1.0 update, approved last night, adds support for iPhone 4, 3GS and latest gen iPod Touches, introduces in-app file management without the need of having to go through iTunes to delete files and increases the compatibility of the app with different filetypes.

No word yet if the app supports beta versions of iOS 4.2, guess we’ll have to find out on our own.

VLC for iPhone and iPad is free and available here. Check out the screenshots and full changelog below. Read more

Apple’s Massive Data Center Beginning Operations “Any Day Now”

Apple’s $1 billion million data center in Maiden, North Carolina is where iTunes in the cloud will live. And the Mac App Store. And MobileMe. And whatever Apple has in mind for its cloud-based features.

According to a report by DataCenterKnowledge, the data center “is expected to begin operations any day now”. Which means it’s ready, and as Apple promised in July it’ll be up and running before the end of the year. Read more