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Posts tagged with "apple"

Here’s The Most Ridiculous App Store Rejection Ever

Seriously, there must be something wrong over at the App Review Team. Perhaps a new guy was hired to replace Mr. Shoemaker? No, because the latest App Store rejection really beats all the other ones we’ve posted over the years. Read It Later 2.2 (our iPad coverage here) was submitted for approval a few days ago, and Apple rejected it because an app “can’t require user registration prior to allowing access to the app’s content”. If you’re app is account-based (Read It Later, or Twitter, or Facebook), it can’t go through.

Either we’re reading the rejection letter wrong, or Apple messed up this time. Check it out below.

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Apple Launches “Compare Macs” Option in Apple Store

Here’s why store.apple.com was down last night, and we didn’t even notice this when it got back up. Apple added a new “Compare Macs” option to the Apple Store, as first noticed by The Loop. The new option allows you to, ehm, compare various Mac models: you can compare price, tech specs, software and even the environmental report for each model. The interface design, as Apple’s tradition, is absolutely beautiful. It’s also very easy to use.

Well done, Apple. This will sure come in handy. To try the new “Compare Macs” option, just select a Mac and hit the button in the top bar - or hit this direct link.

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Apple Launches New iPad Commercial - “iPad is…”

Apple has just launched a new iPad TV commercial, featuring some 3rd party apps like Flipboard and Fruit Ninja HD and even Twitter.com while being used from the iPad.

The new commercial “iPad is” is all focused on contextual experiences based on the different purposes of the device. I think it’s very well done as it carries the message that, thanks to the App Store and Web, the iPad can do anything.

Check it out after the break.

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When the Heck are we Getting Wireless Syncing?

Coming home upon the professor’s early dismissal of class, I decided that the thirty minute drive between headquarters and the college campus should be appropriately followed up with a bit of app updating, Instapaper goodness, a podcast or two, and a well deserved nap. Hastily stripping off my dress shirt, I slipped into the comfort of my couch, propped the iPad against a knee, and immediately ventured into the iPod app. And immediately I was disappointed that I didn’t have the latest podcasts downloaded yet. Oh, the inconvenience of it all!

Aching knees still intact after climbing no less than six flights of stairs just forty five minutes earlier, I hobbled into the office and fumbled for that connect-cable-thing we still get with Apple mobile devices. In five minutes, my iPad had launched iTunes, backed up its wares and slurped down the latest podcasts through only the prettiest cable cluttering my shelf space. Yes, the cable saved the day, but consider me lazy: I shouldn’t even need the cable.

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Apple Granted Patent for “Slide to Unlock”

When Apple introduced the iPhone and Steve Jobs showed how to unlock it for the first time, people went “ooohhh”. Back then, it was a revolution. Over the years smartphone makers and OS designers for touch screen-enabled mobile devices have been trying to copy Apple’s unique implementations and to reach the bar set high by Cupertino’s magical designers.

Three years ago Apple filed patents for the two most distinctive features of the iPhone: “slide to unlock” in the lockscreen and pop-up letters when you type on the virtual keyboard. Perhaps you’re so used to them you wouldn’t even think there’s a need to patent them.

Indeed there is, and United States Patent and Trademark Office has granted Apple two design patents titled “Animated graphical user interface for a display screen or portion thereof ” that will allow Steve to keep on sliding on his iPhone 5 while wandering around Google’s campus without the fear of being observed by Eric Schmidt and his evil design team.

I guess that’s what Apple patents are all about.

[via TUAW]

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Actually, Apple Has Been Using Liquidmetal All Along

Last week we found out that Apple had closed a deal with Liquidmetal, a Californian-based manufacturer of an alloy that is extremely light, hard and that shows a glass-like structure. From what we heard, Apple had acquired “substantially all of [Liquidmetal’s] intellectual property assets,” not to mention a “perpetual, worldwide, fully-paid, exclusive license to commercialize such intellectual property in the field of consumer electronic products in exchange for a license fee.” [Engadget]

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Lady Gaga at Infinite Loop - iPhone 4 Commercial Coming?

Apparently, Lady Gaga just dropped in Cupertino and visited Apple’s campus at Infinite Loop. Not that big of a news, but remember? Back in May, when we didn’t even have a name for the iPhone 4 (we kept calling it “4G” - some people still do), 9to5mac reported of a deal between Apple and the pop singer about a commercial for the new device.

Back then, Gaga’s label Polydor said “no comment”. Sure, many artists visited Apple’s campus (Maroon 5 performed, too) - we just thought that, considering the previous speculations, this might mean something.

We’ll see.

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