A supercharged clipboard manager for Apple devices with on-device intelligence, iCloud sync, and text expansion.
The Facebook app for iPhone was updated a few hours ago with support for iOS 4 multitasking and high resolution graphics. But, the designers over at Facebook also refined some elements and interactions in the app, which now surely feels and works much better than before.
Those are subtle changes, but that’s what making a good iPhone app is about, right? Focusing on the details. Check out Brandon Walkin’s overview of changes in the latest Facebook app update.
If you’re disappointed because the latest Mac mini update didn’t include Blu-ray support, well - Steve Jobs has just confirmed Blu-ray support isn’t coming to Macs at all.
So you’re a rich Russian guy devoted to design. What’s to do? Make a supposedly awesome iPhone 4 case out of African Blackwood and (count ‘em) 18-karat gold. And that’s not any African Blackwood either. It’s 200 years old. Whoa.
Christ T., a MacDailyNews reader, wrote in to ask Steve Jobs about HD video. “What’s the point of building in HD video capabilities when the compression upon uploading directly to youtube makes the video’s useless and not viewable?” But it’s not that big of a deal (it’s really not), and while Steve could have said that, he gave us an interesting tidbit instead. “You can upload them via a Mac or PC today. Over the air in the future.”
So those high def movies you’re making? You’ll be able to upload them over the web (uncompressed) eventually. Just not now.
[MacRumors via MacDailyNews]
Are you likely to recommend your device to a friend or colleague? AdMob asked that very question to 963 respondents (February, 2010) whom picked up some good numbers. While it’s a small group, 91% and 88% of iPhone and iPod touch owners would recommend their devices to friends and family, compared to only 84% for Android and 69% for WebOS recommendations.
Asia is pretty happy with Apple products (not just knockoffs) as well. Japan and China ranked 2nd and 4th for unique iPads that showed up in AdMob’s analytics. 58% of all iPad users reside in the United States, however, with Japan in a far second at 5%.
Impressive result, like other videos we’ve seen this week. Be sure to select 720p in the Youtube options.
[via]
Busy as ever with the success of the iPhone 4 launch, Steve Jobs always takes the time to answer his customers’ questions. This time around, we’ve got a couple M&Ms on the plate. Minerals and multitasking to be specific.
Derick Rhodes, a reader of Wired, wrote in to ask Steve, “Are you currently making any effort to source conflict-free minerals? In particular, I’m concerned that Apple is getting tantalum, tungsten, tin, and gold from Eastern Congo through its suppliers.” In the seriousness of the moment, Jobs cooly replied, “Yes. We require all of our suppliers to certify in writing that they use conflict few materials. But honestly there is no way for them to be sure. Until someone invents a way to chemically trace minerals from the source mine, it’s a very difficult problem.”
Have an iPhone 4? Do you view your photos via the Mobile Me Gallery? Check this out: Apple has updated their Mobile Me Gallery app this morning to support the iPhone 4’s jaw-some retina display. However, the higher quality resolution images can only be downloaded over Wi-Fi.
Update through the App Store, or download Mobile Me Gallery at this link.
[via The Mac Observer]
There’s a huge market in the iPad App Store right now, and that’s for PDF readers. Here’s what’s going on: the iPad came out without a dedicated PDF app developed by Apple and so GoodReader (our review) quickly became the most popular paid app. Months later, Apple announced that a PDF-capable version of iBooks was coming out, and we all started wondering whether iBooks for PDFs could kill any other similar app out there.
Reading PDFs in iBooks feels good, but it’s not the perfect experience many predicted. The interface design is beautiful and elegant as Apple’s tradition, but the app doesn’t hold up well to large documents and, in my tests, I found that opening a 14MB file required even 10 seconds (or more) for the app to start up, load the document and let you swipe through it. Unlike Apple said weeks ago, there’s no page curl effect, and TUAW exposed the problem. Ultimately, I’m deeply disappointed by the poor performances of iBooks with large PDFs. Perhaps another update is on its way, but who knows.
I’ve been using another application to read documents on my iPad, Fast PDF. It’s indeed the best 3rd party software to read PDF files currently available in the App Store.
