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Thanks everyone who entered the DeskAgent 1.1 giveaway.We also want to thank the MacRecon developers for the promo codes they offered to MacStories readers.
Here are the winners:
Ignignokt
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Phillip Johns
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Bruna
Eli
You’ll receive the promo codes in your inbox in a few hours. Congratulations!
Ok, so we know FaceTime is a great technology. Video calling is nothing new, but Apple’s implementation is perfect: one-tap calling, simple UI, easy to use.
How stable and compatible can Apple’s FaceTime be, anyway? We’ve read reports of firewalls blocking its connection. Still, the good folks over at TUAW have managed to talk with a reader who was on a plane, thousands of feet above Earth, using Gogo in-flight Wifi service. The same service which blocks Skype and other VOIP softwares, it worked just fine with FaceTime.
The quality of the call is good, and Bills even changes camera to show that he’s actually on a plane, FaceTime with us poor Earth dwellers. Check out the video after the break.
For those unfamiliar with Psystar, they’re the guys who adamantly want to sell OS X on PC hardware. They sold cheap alternatives to Apple products, and were challenged by Apple to cease and desist all activity. The courts issued Psystar a permanent injunction against making Mac clones, though that hasn’t stopped the crazed company from pursuing the case in the most ludicrous ways possible. They’ve now requested an Appeal against their injunction, and of whatever breath of life Psystar has left, they plan to persuade the “court to adopt a radical revision of the Copyright Misuse doctrine that would in effect destroy copyright and force all copyrighted works to be licensed.” A little insane, but expected from the bunch.
TUAW reports Apple’s response, stating that “Psystar’s grossly overbroad per se theory of copyright misuse would eliminate fundamental rights guaranteed by the Copyright Act – the rights to control the reproduction, modification, and distribution of copyrighted works.”
Honestly, this whole saga would have been a lot more awesome if Psystar had made an OS X tablet. I mean, they could have been cool at least.
[The Mac Observer via TUAW]
Senior Vice President of iPhone Software Scott Forstall has recently joined Twitter with a verified account, though if he’s just protecting his name, he may want to make his Tweets private to prevent the public from using him as a lever for customer support. I imagine Forstall is doing just that: protecting his name on Twitter. He doesn’t have a profile pic and hasn’t tweeted anything, so until we see those crazy eyes, the account’s just a placeholder.
However, TechCrunch speculates on the possibilities, mainly that Forstall is either interested in learning more about Twitter for a future iOS implementation. Though After Apple’s incredible profile on Twitter, I imagine Cupertino already has some insight into the company’s operations and software.
And don’t forget the rumors that Apple was thinking about Facebook integration for the iPhone. Nothing came of that with iOS 4, but integration of Facebook and Flickr in software such as iPhoto, suggests that Apple isn’t opposed to such partnerships. For the iPhone, Twitter could be a perfect one.
I can see the headlines now. “iPhone 5. 140 Characters Re-imagined.” Or something magical like that.
[via TechCrunch]
Take this with a grain of salt for the time being. A Gizmodo reader detailed a recent iPhone 4 replacement that seems to be… different. It has a slightly different stainless steel edge than the launch model, and doesn’t drop calls.
So yeah, I’m skeptical. If Apple was replacing models, I imagine the Internet would explode.
The iPad is still waiting for its Tweetie: a Twitter client which will set new standards and raise the bar so high it’ll be difficult for developers to catch up. Twitterrific hasn’t raised the bar: it brought a blow of fresh air in a market that, since Twitter’s acquisition of Loren’s app, is struggling to find its new Messiah. For as much as I love Twitterrific 3.0 (it’s my default client on the iPhone) I can’t say The Iconfactory has reinvented the wheel. The first Tweetie for iPhone did.
Maybe the wheel doesn’t need to be reinvented. Maybe we’ve already explored all the possible ways to lay out a Twitter application and now we’re just waiting for the one developer who implements them best. It’s a subtle difference.
If we take this approach, Osfoora for iPhone and iPad might be the best example to take a look at. It started as a quite blatant Tweetie ripoff, but it slowly evolved overtime in a wisely developed alternative to much more celebrated clients such as the aforementioned Tweetie, Twitterrific but also Echofon, Twitbird and Twittelator. It’s really changed a lot since the last time Cody reviewed the iPhone version here on MacStories.
Even though its terrific evolution, this time I won’t be talking about Osfoora for iPhone. The iPad version, released last month, was updated yesterday with a lot of new features and now it’s seriously claiming the throne of the best Twitter client for iPad. App Store users seem to be on Said Marouf’s side.
Here’s why I agree with them.
Microsoft has been in the tablet business for years. Well, supposedly anyway. I’ve never seen one on the streets, but of the two users who actually used one, they say Microsoft made an okay product. But after events full of promised Windows tablets, the Courier, and some HP Slate thing that’s gone nowhere, Microsoft is left wondering how the hell to advance. It boggles my mind that after ten years of research, they have nothing to show for it but a standard Windows OS slapped onto a sheet of plastic.
We’ve mentioned before that AdMob was still existent in the App Store. Now AdMob CEO Omar Hamoui confirms that Apple hasn’t been enforcing their new policies.
CNET reports:
“They haven’t been enforcing (the new regulations) yet. We’re very appreciate of that.” Were Apple to actually enforce those terms, “it would mean we could not run ads on the iPhone at all,” Hamoui said, explaining that without the analytical data, AdMob couldn’t even track who had clicked on their customer’s ads. Advertisers won’t buy ads when they can’t even tell how many people had clicked on that ad, he said.
“The really rich pretty ads they’re doing are making advertisers and agencies think about what mobile means,” Hamoui said. “Anybody getting advertisers interested in mobile is a good thing. It’s not at all a zero-sum game.”
[via CNET]
Apple has just started sending out emails to remind Mac OS X developers that they can now submit Safari Extensions to Apple to be featured in the upcoming Extension gallery.
