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Posts tagged with "apple"

Financial Times Says iPad App Can Go “Somewhere Else”

The executives over at the Financial Times don’t like Apple’s new terms for app subscriptions. Even with an iPad app that’s generating 20% of the publication’s subscribers and millions in revenue, Financial Times owner Pearson expressed his concerns about Apple’s policy in a way that suggest the Financial Times may soon launch its app on other tablets and abandon the iPad, the Guardian reports.

It is unclear how their proposal is going to work, we are still talking to them,” said Scardino. “The important thing to remember is there are many, many tablets coming out and multiple devices … [from] Kindle to mobiles. If indeed Apple are not happy to give us customer data then maybe we will get it somewhere else.

Chief executive Scardino argues that as competition to Apple’s iPad increases over time, there will be no need for publishers to only consider the App Store ecosystem. Admittedly, Apple’s new terms with a 30% fee on every transaction and the impossibility to just link an external web store inside an app are turning out to be quite problematic for newspapers and magazines. Only a few of them have implemented the new subscription technology (which handles everything, from recurring payments to customers’ data, through iTunes), and with a deadline set by June it will be interesting to see which ones will stay on board, and those who will prefer Android tablets instead. For those looking for a reminder of Apple’s new rules:

Publishers who use Apple’s subscription service in their app can also leverage other methods for acquiring digital subscribers outside of the app. For example, publishers can sell digital subscriptions on their web sites, or can choose to provide free access to existing subscribers. Since Apple is not involved in these transactions, there is no revenue sharing or exchange of customer information with Apple. Publishers must provide their own authentication process inside the app for subscribers that have signed up outside of the app. However, Apple does require that if a publisher chooses to sell a digital subscription separately outside of the app, that same subscription offer must be made available, at the same price or less, to customers who wish to subscribe from within the app. In addition, publishers may no longer provide links in their apps (to a web site, for example) which allow the customer to purchase content or subscriptions outside of the app.

Antitrust enforces have been rumored to be “looking at” Apple’s new subscriptions for apps as well.


Opera Debuts On The Mac App Store

A new release to the Mac App Store today is the Opera web browser that can be downloaded for free. The app seems to be exactly the same as the non Mac App Store version and identifies itself as version 11.01 and build 1206.

The app also includes its Presto layout engine, which would have been thought to be an infringement on Apple’s Mac App Store guidelines that state, “Apps that use non-public APIs will be rejected.” This raises the distinct possibility that browser engines may not fall under the private API category, in which case other browsers could soon be heading to the Mac App Store including Firefox that uses another layout engine called Gecko. Alternatively it is possible that an Apple reviewer has let Opera slip through without realizing, which has happened before with app reviews.

When bringing the Opera browser to the iPhone and iPad, they had run into similar guideline restrictions and were forced to only release Opera Mini that does not use their own browser engine but instead directs traffic through Opera’s servers to compress data. The more fully featured Opera Mobile which is available for Android and other mobile phones could not be released on the iPhone because of its reliance on their own APIs .

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Steve Jobs Almost Received An Honourary Knighthood

A former British MP has revealed to The Telegraph that Steve Jobs was close to being offered a knighthood in 2009 for his services to technology. According to the former MP, the proposal for his knighthood was blocked because Jobs had previously refused to speak at a British political event.

The former senior British MP told The Telegraph that he had nominated Steve Jobs for knighthood and that despite reaching the final stages of approval, was inevitably refused by Downing Street. He claims that they explained the refusal was based on Jobs’ refusal to attend an annual Labor conference, just his appearance at the event would have been a big political win for Gordon Brown.

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Unreal Engine 3 To Power Four Gameloft Games In 2011 And 2012

Gameloft has today announced that they have partnered with Epic Games to bring four games to mobile devices using Unreal Engine 3. The game engine will power two games this year and two aimed for release in 2012.

Unreal Engine 3, which was released late last year, was the game engine that powered the tech demo of Epic Citadel as well as Epic Games very succesful Infinity Blade.  The Unreal Development Kit is free for developers to download and try, but if used they must pay a $99 licensing fee and a 25% royalty fee after the first $50,000 in sales.

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March 2nd Liveblog: The iPad’s Second Coming

There couldn’t be a more hyped announcement than this week’s Apple Keynote at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts on March 2nd, and we’ll be hanging out with all of you guys at a safe distance for when the fireworks misfire. Rumors will be settled, white iPads will be tossed into (non)-existence, and awkward picture moments with new cameras will be had. Plus, you can expect those heart tingling show-stoppers with a Jony Ives speech, and maybe (just maybe) a new look at the next generation of iOS. Excited yet?

Join us at 12:00 pm, Eastern Standard Time (that’s the New York gamut) for an hour long pre-show where we’ll kick around iPad predictions, overdose on coffee, and potentially ruin a perfectly good stress ball before the event. As always we’ll be consolidating all of the major announcements into a streamlined feed from everyone’s favorite websites.

Bookmark this page and come back before the event starts on March 2nd for lots of fun, question answering from the audience, and maybe a guest or two.

Time Zones:

13:00 – New York, New York
10:00 – San Francisco, California
08:00 – Honolulu, Hawaii
05:00 – Sydney, Australia
03:00 – Tokyo, Japan
02:00 – Shanghai, China
23:30 – New Delhi, India
21:00 – Moscow, Russia
19:00 – Rome, Italy
18:00 – London, England

Don’t see your city? You can use this link to get your exact time. Read more


Boot Camp Only Supports Windows 7 For New MacBook Pros

An Apple support note released on Friday has revealed that Boot Camp will only work with Windows 7 on the new MacBook Pros that were released last week, with drivers for Windows XP and Vista not supplied.
This follows a trend that was set by the Late 2010 MacBook Air that likewise didn’t include drivers for Windows XP and Vista. It would be assumed that Apple has stopped developing Boot Camp drivers for XP and Vista and all new Macs will solely support Windows 7.
[Via ZDNet]

Lion’s Podcast Publisher Is Podcasting Made Dead Simple

Apple has a pretty diverse set of content creation applications from the much loved iLife consumer suite of applications to the more professional packages such as Final Cut Pro and Logic Studio. In OS X Lion, they have added Podcast Publisher, it’s a really simple and handy utility that will allow anyone to quickly make an audio or video Podcast and share it with the world.

Podcast Publisher lets you create video or audio podcasts; you can either import the audio or video or choose to record it from within the app. If you choose to record from within the app it gives you the options of recording from your Mac’s iSight camera, recording a screencast or recording audio from a microphone. Once the video or audio is captured you have the basic ability to trim the audio or video.

Once an episode of the Podcast has been completed it can be exported to your desktop, iTunes library, shared through Mail or sent to a Podcast library server or remote workflow. Jump the break for some more pictures of Podcast Producer.

[Via 9to5 Mac]


Lion’s Migration Assistant Allows Set Up From A Networked PC

Another new feature discovered in the developer preview of OS X Lion is the ability to set up a Mac from a networked Windows PC as part of the Migration Assistant utility. Traditionally the only way to set up a new Mac and import all your files and settings was to use FireWire’s Target Disk Mode and hook up the old Mac or PC to the new Mac or use a Time Machine disk.

When Apple removed the FireWire port on some of its Macs it added the ability for Migration Assistant to import from a networked Mac, but not a PC. The Migration Assistant in the developer preview of OS X 10.7 Lion now brings the ability for new Mac users to set up Lion with data and settings from an existing Windows-based PC. The only caveat being that it requires a Migration Assistant helper client to be running on the Windows machine. For developers wishing to test this out, you’ll need to download that helper client from Apple’s developer site.

[Via AppleInsider]


With Real-Time API, Instagram Goes Beyond the App Store

Instagram yesterday released their real-time updates API which allows other developers to integrate Instagram photos, tags and locations in their own apps. The API is already in action on a number of apps including Foodspotting, Momento and Instagre.at.

Over 2000 developers signed up for access to the API and some other popular apps and services such as Flipboard and About.me will soon be adding Instagram API into their products. However at this stage the API is read-only as Instagram works to ensure a smooth implementation of the API, which was only announced earlier this month. Instagram has a demo of what the API can achieve, with a dynamic web page updating as new photos are uploaded to Instagram.

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