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Posts tagged with "apple"

NPR Calls Ping One of “The Worst Ideas Of 2010”

In spite of Apple’s numerous attempts to inject new features and 3rd party online integrations in it, Ping is struggling to take off. Not only does the service seem useless and too tied to iTunes to many, several publications are also calling it one of the biggest flops of 2010.

You can now add NPR to the list of Ping non-fans, as they have named Apple’s social network for music one of the “worst ideas of 2010”. Ouch.

The most popular services — the Facebooks, Twitters and MySpaces of the world — allow users to share links, thoughts, ideas, photos and music to connect with each other. Ping, run through iTunes, was supposed to be an evolution in musical connection. But iTunes, being a self-contained fortress requiring endless software upgrades and with more than a few frustrating quirks, isn’t conducive to the type of sharing Web-based networks enjoy across a variety of devices. I can access all three of the aforementioned sites from my Android phone, and I have a variety of apps that allow me to seamlessly integrate these applications into my life. To use Ping, I would have to be tethered to my iMac.

NPR also notes that Ping is a “weakened” version of Twitter only meant to drive sales to the iTunes Store. Looking at artists’ profiles and the messages they share on Ping, it’s not difficult to understand NPR’s position. Perhaps their hammer went down a little too hard on Apple’s new service, though? Sure Ping is not a massive hit, but it has room to grow.

As it stands right now, Apple wants its users to believe in Ping. The problem is, people sometimes don’t want to wait for things to get better. Here’s to hoping Ping will get insanely better in 2011.

Apple Job Posting Suggests More Speech Recognition Features Coming to iOS

9to5mac points to four new job listings that appeared on Apple’s website earlier this week and suggest the company is looking forward to implementing more speech recognition features in future versions of iOS. The job positions (1, 2, 3, 4) include one “iOS Speech Application Engineer”, two “Speech Recognition Engineers” and one “Senior Speech Research Scientist”.

Are you looking to contribute to a product that is redefining the smartphone? The iOS Application Frameworks team is looking for an exceptional Speech Engineer. You will work with our team on a wide variety of speech-related development activities. We need a team player - you will be working closely with engineers on the Application Frameworks team as well as other teams at Apple - and we need someone who is comfortable working in a fast paced environment with rapidly changing priorities.

The fact that Apple is looking for not one, but four Speech engineers may be a sign of the iOS team at Cupertino willing to catch up with Google, which already has powerful voice search and voice action functionalities on Android. Speech recognition features on iOS are limited to Voice Control and a few other App Store apps that come with their own speech technologies – apps like Siri Assistant, bought by Apple earlier this year.

If you think the pieces are coming together now for speech-related features to show up in a major new version of iOS next year, then I guess we’re all excited for voice actions to find their way on the iPhone and iPad.

Shocker! Someone At Apple Killed The Unofficial WikiLeaks App

Three days ago we covered the unofficial WikiLeaks app for iPhone and iPad, a $1.99 piece of software available in the App Store which let you access the latest diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks and check on the organization’s Twitter account. It was also nicely designed and sold as a universal app.

Developer Igor Barinov, though, wasn’t planning on taking all the money from the sales of the app. Instead, he decided to donate half of the proceeds to WikiLeaks, a move that likely pissed off Steve Jobs, or someone else at the App Store team. In fact, for some obscure reason or App Store guideline we’re no aware of, the app is gone. Killed. Kaput. There’s no WikiLeaks app in the App Store anymore. Without an explanation, the developer got an email from Apple about the changed state of his app, which was “removed from sale”.

I’m not sure this app violated any of Apple’s guidelines. It was a wrapper for a website (the CableGate documents) and a Twitter account – both of them publicly available on the internet. We all know there’s worse in the App Store, and – to tell the truth – this was also a good app. Assange and WikiLeaks are controversial and one may or may not agree with his efforts to “reveal the truth”, but there’s no reason to remove an unofficial app.

Unless, well, you’re Apple and you don’t care about your own Guidelines.

Apple Shuts Down Mac OS X Downloads Page

Well, we all knew this was going to happen sooner or later. Apple is shutting down the OS X Downloads page, in lieu of the Mac App Store which is launching on January 6th. Here’s the email Apple just sent out to Mac developers:

Thank you for making the Mac OS X Download site a great destination with apps that offer users new ways to work, play, learn, and create on their Mac.

We recently announced that on January 6, 2011, the Mac App Store will open to users around the world, presenting you with an exciting, new opportunity to reach millions of customers. Since the introduction of the App Store in 2008, we’ve been thrilled with the incredible support from developers and the enthusiastic response from users. Now we’re bringing the revolutionary experience of the App Store to Mac OS X.

Because we believe the Mac App Store will be the best destination for users to discover, purchase, and download your apps, we will no longer offer apps on the Mac OS X Downloads site. Instead, beginning January 6, we will be directing users to explore the range of apps available on the Mac App Store.

We appreciate your support of the Mac platform and hope you’ll take advantage of this new opportunity to showcase your apps to even more users. To learn how you can offer your apps on the Mac App Store, visit the Apple Developer website at http://developer.apple.com/programs/mac.

The Mac OS X Downloads website provided for years a way for developers to showcase their Mac apps for free to the large audience of Apple’s website. It also served as a great way to get new Mac users started on third-part software for OS X. Clearly Apple thinks this is all going to change with the Mac App Store, which will be included in a Software Update for all Snow Leopard users.

No details have been provided about other categories of software currently promoted on the Downloads site, such as Automator workflows and Dashboard widgets.

OpenDNS May Slow Down Your Apple TV Streaming

I noticed this issue last week and I thought it was, once again, my ISP’s fault. The Vodafone Station connection I have here doesn’t exactly play well with…anything. Basically, I tried to set up the device using OpenDNS and I saw streaming speed of iTunes content go terribly down – even lower than what I’m used to with the Vodafone Station. It turns out, though, that it might not be Vodafone’s fault at all this time. Instead, it appears that the Apple TV doesn’t play nice with third-party DNS providers such as Google’s DNS or OpenDNS.

According to TUAW, developer Joe Maller and quite a few users on Apple’s discussion boards, setting different DNS other than your ISP’s in the Apple TV can cause iTunes to take even hours to start a streaming session. Maller’s Apple TV took 2 hours to start streaming content under a 20 Mbs connection. Read more

Why Half-Life 1 For Mac Never Came Out→

Why Half-Life 1 For Mac Never Came Out

Jump to the 16-minute mark for the juicy bits. Basically, the game was ready and the developers even managed to deploy a system that allowed Mac and PC users to play together on a special server. The game had a few bugs but was a few weeks away from golden master. Retail stores orders were coming in.

It was done. So why didn’t it come out? Hint: Apple.

[Cocoia via Reddit]

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First Free Download Shows Up in “iTunes 12 Days of Christmas” App

This morning my iPhone sent me a push notification to let me know that a new download was available in the “iTunes 12 Days of Christmas” app. I immediately realized that was strange, as we previously reported Apple’s annual promotion (for European users) should be running from December 26 until January 6. Why sending out a push notification on December 17?

The download is an EP by Kylie Minogue called “A Christmas Gift”, but as you can guess it seems to be an error on Apple’s end. As you tap on the download button, you’re brought to the iTunes app which returns an error and says the item is not available.

Perhaps “A Christmas Gift” will be the first free album to download on the 26. If not, well – at least the music introduction Apple put into the app this morning is pretty sweet. Read more

Apple Tweaks Online Store With “Popular Configurations”

As noted by TUAW , Apple silently updated the online Store to introduce a neat little feature: popular configurations for Macs. Just right ahead of Christmas, Apple is now showcasing popular setups such as “MacBook with larger hard drive” or “MacBook with more RAM” to make it easy for people to get around specs and “build the system of their dreams” (actual words from the Apple Store).

I think this is a very welcome new feature in the Store which will surely help the less tech-savvy wanna-be Apple users get the most out of their computers, and wallets. Not everyone knows what HDD 320GB 5200 rpm means, MacBook “with larger hard drive” just sounds better. Typical Apple move to streamline the experience, if you ask me.

Check out the new Configure page here.