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Posts tagged with "apple"

Instagram Shifting Focus to an Open Platform With API

Instagram has been a phenomenal success story gaining a user base of 2 million people in just four months that are now uploading 300,000 photos a day and now the developers are inviting developers to sign up for access to an Instagram API. In a blog post, Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom said that the guiding principle for Instagram was to “create and maintain an open ecosystem that changes the way we see our world,” opening up Instagram to other developers is their next step to fulfilling that principle.

The opening up of a developers API seems to indicate a shift by Instagram from one of giving users an app to edit photos and share, to one dominated by creating a social image sharing service. This could allow other apps such as Hipstamatic to hook into Instagram and let users share their Hipstamatic photo’s on through Instagram. The blog post doesn’t quite make it clear if this is their intention but it most definitely seems like the logical iteration.

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Apple Planning Retail Store in Grand Central Terminal?

The New York Observer has a lengthy piece today on Apple’s rumored new location for a retail store in NYC: Grand Central Terminal. The Observer reports:

Sources tell The Observer that the maker of ubiquitous iGadgets—from computers to cell phones—hopes to open a store in the transportation and retail hub, though it has yet to begin the long approval process necessary for opening in a city landmark.

The publication also notes Apple and Grand Central’s leasing agent obviously declined to comment; Apple’s most popular stores in New York, the Fifth Avenue store and the one in Upper West Side, share a similar design approach with glass (Fifth Ave.) and stone walls (UWS). Recently, Apple has been rumored to be considering a revamp of the current Palo Alto retail store basing on the design guidelines from New York’s Upper West Side location.

As The Observer also notes, if the rumors are to be believed and Apple is indeed in the early planning stages of a Grand Central store, it will be interesting to see how Apple will manage to put a full-featured store in the famous retail hub. Although we think Apple’s shiny glass and minimal design philosophy would be a great fit for Grand Central.

Apple: No More iPad Cutting Board

When Apple’s lawyers give you a call, perhaps you’d like to re-consider what you’re doing and, you know, just stop it altogether. That’s what happened to Dean Kaplan, creator of the iPad cutting board (not the one we featured here, which looked more like a giant iPhone).

From his personal blog:

A few months back we received a call from Apple lawyers and we were told to stop selling them. The reason given was based on “likeness” issues. A Wood cutting board. Lord have mercy on my soul.

Is Apple evil, or they just trying to protect a trademark? It was just a cutting board after all… [via AppAdvice]

Verizon iPhone 4’s Starting to Arrive Today For Those Who Pre-Ordered

If you are one of those who stayed up till 3am last week and ordered the Verizon iPhone you might be one of the lucky first few to get your hands on the long awaited phone. Engadget reports that it is receiving lots of tips that deliveries are happening this Monday morning.

Boy Genius Report also got their Verizon iPhone 4 delivered this morning and they have an unboxing gallery up for your viewing pleasure!

[Via Engadget, Boy Genius Report]

2011 WWDC Rumored to be June 5 – 9

Setteb.it has done some investigating and it seems that if Apple follows previous trends from past WWDC’s, it would appear that the 2011 dates for WWDC would be June 5 - 9. The above image gives a rundown of booked events in the Moscone center in downtown San Francisco and the dates of June 5 - 9 are just labelled as a ‘Corporate Meeting’, as Apple has done so in past years.

WWDC, or the World Wide Developers Conference has been the place Apple has revealed it’s new iPhones (except the original) and major updates iOS updates. The keynote on June 5th would also be a really nice tie in for the launch of the iPhone 5! Last years WWDC was on June 7 - 11.

[Via 9to5Mac, Setteb.it]

Update: AppleBitch spotted the rumored WWDC dates last week.

iPads to Enter Yet Another Parliament, This Time in Britain

The British House of Lords is set to soon allow it’s parliamentarians to use the iPad and other tablets, smartphones and e-readers, for a one year trial period. This embrace of the iPad is just the latest in a long line of examples where the iPad has gone beyond just a consumer entertainment device to one that is for students, Fortune 500 companies and politicians across the world.

The British parliamentarians will however be restricted to only accessing parliamentary documents and other clearly related files and websites to ensure that the devices do not detract from the key role of the House. This is undoubtedly a rule to try and avoid what happened last week in Italy when a member of their parliament, Simeone Di Cagno Abbrescia was caught browsing certain escort agency websites on the iPad during a parliamentary sitting.

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The Plaza Hotel Deploys iPads in Every Room

The five star The Plaza hotel in New York city has recently deployed iPads to every single one of it’s rooms and has a seriously cool iPad app running on them. The application allows the hotel visitors to do everything from turning lights on, changing the air conditioning, making restaurant reservations, ordering amenities and much more.

According to The Plaza’s general manager they had previously tried a similar system that was a touch panel but it “wasn’t sophisticated enough for what we wanted to do” and the iPad was chosen because “it is a great piece of equipment that is here to stay and won’t disappear tomorrow.”

Jump the break for a demo of the iPad app, made by Intelity, and its wide range of abilities.
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iPad Helping Remove Bookshelves, Save Space in Japan

With Japan’s cramped living quarters, arrival of the iPad and other tablets and it’s non-existent e-book market, there has been an explosion of start-ups offering consumers to turn their paper books into e-books that can be used on such tablets as the iPad. Japan currently has the largest market for paper books and magazines, worth over $24 billion a year, yet the e-book market is currently earning less than $1 billion per year, driving customers to alternatives such as scanning books into PDF’s for use on tablets and e-readers.

One such start-up, Bookscan was founded by Yusuke Ohki and childhood friend, Shinya Iwamatsu last April and has done gangbusters, expanding its workforce to 120 people in less than 12 months. Ohki said to Bloomberg “the iPad’s release is the biggest factor in making this business possible” and said his inspiration for starting the business was the 2000 physical books that were crowding out his small Tokyo apartment.

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greenpois0n Available for Windows, Mac Version Updated

A few hours ago the Windows version of greenpois0n was made available (as was promised) and an updated version of the Mac client, RC5 Beta 3 was also released.  This jailbreak solution allows for iOS devices running 4.2.1 to be jailbroken and be untethered, which means the device can be restarted without requiring a program to boot the device.

If your iOS device has already been jailbroken with redsn0w, just run greenpois0n and it will untether it without removing anything. There is no word yet on whether a Linux version is in the works.

To download head to greenpois0n.com for the Mac and Windows downloads, or alternatively the mirror site.

[Via iH8sn0w on Twitter]