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Digg 5.1 Brings the Most Popular Stories to Your iPhone and iPad

If you’ve settled on Digg as your feed reader of choice, you’ll like the latest batch of updates for the iOS apps, which brings the web’s clients Popular view to your iPhone and iPad. Throughout the app, you’ll also find new ways to filter out read and unread items, thanks to a toggle that slides in and out of view as you browse around. You’ll also find a static toggle in the settings that’ll let you view only the unread stuff. Other notable features include better scrolling and the ability to delete feeds and folders.

You can download Digg for free from the App Store.

You Can Finally Create Magazines of Cat GIFs in Flipboard→

Straight from the Inside Flipboard blog:

Who doesn’t love GIFs? Flipboard readers have already incorporated them into lively magazines like “Just GIF It,” “GIF Pop” and “GIF Me a Break.” Already on Android, GIF support comes to Flipboard for iPad and iPhone—so now anyone can collect and share their favorites in a magazine. (To celebrate, we’ve got some GIF-centric magazines we love featured today in By Our Readers. Tap on the red ribbon to find them in the Content Guide.)

In Flipboard 2.0.5 (App Store link), you’ll also get access to the latest Top Stories in Tech, News, Business, and Sports. Flipboard is also emphasizing the social aspects of their app by making it easier to find curators and prompting you to share your magazine with others once you’ve saved ten articles.

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Apple Updates App Store Guidelines for Children’s and Gambling Apps→

Juli Clover of MacRumors writes about Apple’s latest revisions to the App Store Review Guidelines.

The new section detailing apps for children under age 13 specifies that such apps must include a privacy policy, may not include behavioral advertising (ads based on in-app activity, for example), and must ask for parental permission before allowing children to “link out of the app or engage in commerce.” Apps in the Kids Category of the App Store must be made specifically for children “ages 5 and under, ages 6–8, or ages 9–11.”

In addition to its guideline changes regarding children, Apple implemented two new guidelines that pertain to gambling. Apps that offer real money gaming are now required to be free and are forbidden from using in-app purchases to offer players credit or currency to use in such games.

Emphasis mine. That’s rule 24.3 in the guidelines and it isn’t terribly specific. Not being a parent, I’m not familiar with parental controls, so my initial assumption was that mom or dad would have to enter a password so the child could continue. I asked for specifics on Twitter, and the answer I got clarified that the app will just ask whether you’re a minor. I’m suddenly reminded of this Onion piece.

Parental controls (aka Restrictions) on iOS can also keep your child from installing apps, poking around on the Internet, and from making in-app purchases. Apple’s guide tells you how to turn Restrictions on and set a passcode, but OS X Daily has a quick walkthrough that highlights all the important stuff.

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Reinventing iOS Automation: Editorial Review

Editorial for iPad

Editorial for iPad

Update: I have turned this review into an interactive book with additional & exclusive content. You can find it on iTunes, on sale for a limited time. More information is available here.

Ole Zorn knows how to push the boundaries of iOS. His latest app, Editorial for iPad, redefines the market of text editors for iOS, and, in many ways, sets a new standard for iOS automation and desktop-class apps. Editorial makes me want to work from my iPad.

Before I get to the details, allow me to offer some backstory to properly contextualize Editorial and the process that led me to its launch today. I have been testing Editorial for the past eight months (since late November 2012, when I received the first beta build), and I’ve seen the app go through numerous iterations and changes. At one point I wasn’t even sure Editorial would come out anymore. Editorial has become the essential part of my iOS workflow, and it only seems fair to have a proper introduction.

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iOS 7 Apps and Aggressive Adoption→

David Smith, on deciding to go iOS 7-only for his next app updates:

Today, I’ve reverted my position again. I am going to be aggressively adopting iOS 7 exclusively in my apps.

This change is mostly a result not so much of the technical or business implications of supporting legacy versions but of quality assurance needs. I have been able to manage working out the technical needs of supporting both versions but I have found that the time and energy required to test and validate the applications on both is becoming too much of a burden.

Aside from a technological standpoint, I think the most important factor to consider is that users can’t wait to get their hands on iOS 7. The new version is a major change, and – at least based on my survey of non-geeky friends – I suspect that more people will upgrade more quickly than last year (the launch of iOS 6 surely wasn’t helped by doubts surrounding Maps).

With users being so excited for iOS 7, the decision of going iOS 7-only makes sense. At least, it’s a common pattern that I’m observing this summer.

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Pixar Founder Accepts the Disney Legends Award for Steve Jobs→

This weekend, Steve Jobs was awarded the Disney Legends Award. Husain Sumra from MacRumors writes:

Disney Legends was a program that originated 26 years ago, and over the years the program has honored over 250 individuals who have made significant contributions to The Walt Disney Company. Jobs received the award for his “visionary attitude, and penchant for innovation”, his work at Apple, his contributions to Pixar, and his work on the Disney board of directors.

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The Making of the Tri-Tone→

You might be surprised to find that the Tri-tone wasn’t originally engineered for the iPhone. As Kelly Jacklin, the creator of the Tri-tone explains, the sound was originally intended as a confirmation sound for a disc burning feature in what would be the predecessor to iTunes.

I was looking for something “simple” that would grab the user’s attention. I thought a simple sequence of notes, played with a clean-sounding instrument, would cut through the clutter of noise in a home or office. So I had two tasks: pick an instrument, and pick a sequence of notes. Simple, right? Yeah, says you; everyone’s an armchair musician…

For reference, the Tri-tone is the default alert tone used when when receiving an SMS or Voicemail on an iPhone.

[via @drdrang]

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AllThingsD: Apple Announcing New iPhone On September 10

According to Ina Fried at AllThingsD, Apple will announce a new iPhone at a media event on September 10:

Apple is expected to unveil its next iPhone at a special event on Sept. 10, sources told AllThingsD.

The launch comes at an important time for Apple, which continues to make a lot of money from the iPhone but has seen its global market share dip amid a growing wave of lower-cost Android devices as well as an intense battle with archrival Samsung.

AllThingsD has a solid track record with previous Apple event predictions, and it seems safe to assume this rumor will soon be backed by other well-connected sources.

If true, this could set Apple’s pattern history to repeat itself with new phones being released with iOS 7 pre-installed, and the new OS on track for a release 7-10 after the media event. A Golden Master seed of iOS 7 could be released to developers on the day of the event, with Apple asking developers to start submitting iOS 7 apps to the App Store on the same day. In 2011, Apple released the GM seed of iOS 5 on October 4 and asked developers to start submitting apps on the same day; last year, Apple held a media event, released a GM build of iOS 6, and emailed developers on September 12.

New iOS versions are typically released on Wednesdays (iOS 5 was released on October 12, 2011, and iOS 6 on September 19, 2012 – both Wednesdays), which could mean a release of iOS 7 on September 18 (alongside iTunes 11.1, in beta right now) with the new iPhone to follow on September 20 in a few initial markets (new iPhones are usually released on Fridays).

There are differences between this year and 2011/2012 for Apple – most notably, the fact that iOS 7 is a major rethink of iOS that may require more than a week between a GM build and the public release. But there are several minor differences as well: a Dev Center outage that lasted three weeks; a rumor that claimed Apple was forced to “pull away” resources from the iPad team earlier this year to focus on iOS 7 for the iPhone; the fact that iOS 7 beta for iPad was, indeed, released two weeks after the iPhone beta, with recent reports suggesting that the iPad build still isn’t nearly as fast and stable as the iPhone one. And, besides iOS 7, this year’s most prominent rumor – a low-cost iPhone that may or may not see Apple more aggressively entering new international markets. But how many at launch? Will Apple keep growing the list of initial launch countries? Will the low-cost iPhone be introduced on September 10 as well? Will the successor to the iPhone 5 be called iPhone 5S?

We’ll find out, if Ina Fried is right, on September 10.