This Week's Sponsor:

Textastic

The Powerful Code Editor for iPad and iPhone — Now Free to Try

Posts tagged with "apple"

Review Of Buttonless, A Book About Incredible iOS Games And The Stories Behind Them

Remember when Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone way back in January 2007 by prefacing the reveal by first saying it was a “a widescreen iPod with touch controls”, “a revolutionary mobile phone” and “a breakthrough Internet communications device”? It certainly delivered upon those three pillars, but as the iPhone and iOS has evolved over the years it has become evident that the iPhone (and subsequently the iPod touch and iPad) is also an innovative and impressive portable gaming device. Gaming has become a big selling point for iOS devices and since the App Store launched there have been a number of truly great and innovative games that have both shown what the devices are capable of and offered unique experiences that weren’t available anywhere else.

Today, ‘Buttonless: Incredible iPhone and iPad Games and the Stories Behind Them’ has been released on Amazon. It’s a new book by Ryan Rigney that aims to introduce you to a selection of the very best iOS games and then peel away the curtain, revealing the story and people behind the games. To compile the book, Rigney selected 65 of the “best and most beloved” iOS games and then conducted over 100 interviews with the developers and designers of the games. The result is 244 pages of interesting ‘behind-the-scenes’ stories that are unlikely to be found anywhere else.

I was given a pre-release copy of the book and below the break is my full review of ‘Buttonless’.

Read more

Report: iPad 3 Component Production Beginning, Launch Expected For March Or April 2012

According to DigiTimes, which admittedly has quite a mixed record on Apple rumors, manufacturers in Apple’s supply chain have begun delivering parts and components for the next generation iPad. From this information, DigiTimes believes that the next iPad will be available in 3-4 months (aligning with March or April next year), with iPad 2 component supply beginning to wind down now.

OEM production of iPad 2 will remain high at 14-15 million units in the fourth quarter of 2011 but decline to 4-5 million units in the first quarter of 2012, paving the way for the launch of the new iPads, the sources noted.

Furthermore, the Chinese Commercial Times reports that Foxconn will begin production of the next-generation iPad in January, with production volume ramping up in February. It is expected that production of the next iPad will reach 9.5-9.8 million units in the first quarter of 2012.

[Via DigiTimes]

Apple Promotes The Beatles With New TV Advert, Free iBook

Late yesterday Apple posted a new TV ad online that promotes The Beatles on iTunes. The ad, called “Covers”, is a 30 second piece that features a number of their album covers animating and morphing into one another to the tune of ‘Magical Mystery Tour’.

It follows yesterday’s release of ‘The Beatles Yellow Submarine’ a free, interactive iBook that is available exclusively on the iBookstore.

This enchanting illustrated book captures the same magical spirit found in the film. The Beatles’ journey to save Pepperland from the music-hating Blue Meanies is filled with surrealistic humor, wit, and clever references to The Beatles’ song titles and lyrics. In this iTunes exclusive, clips from the movie have been included throughout and can be viewed either embedded in the page or at full-screen. The book also contains interactive animations as well as sound effects and music clips.

Jump the break to view the new ad, you can download ‘The Beatles Yellow Submarine’ for free on the iBookstore.

[Via MacRumors]

Read more

Apple’s Grand Central Store: A Collection of Photos from Around the Web

After months of speculation, more rumors, a confirmation and then sneak peaks, the Grand Central Apple Store opened today at 10am to large crowds eager to see the latest flagship Apple retail store in this very unique setting. As is typical for any new Apple Store, staff were handing out 4,000 launch t-shirts with the text “Apple Store, Grand Central” (photo below the break).

The actual store will be open 7am to 9am from Monday to Friday, 10am to 7pm Saturday and 11am to 6pm on Sundays. With over 300 employees and two genius bars, the store is well-suited for the large flow of people that is expected to come through its doors - and popular services such as Express Workshops and Personal Pickup will all operate in the store.

We’ve sourced some photos of the new store which you can see past the break and we will continue to update this post over the next few hours as we find more nice shots of the store.

[Images via Engadget, BGR]

Read more

TV Purchases & Streaming Now Available For Australian, Canadian & UK Apple TV Owners

Owners of the Apple TV in Australia, Canada and the UK were given a nice surprise today with an over-the-air update enabling TV Shows to be purchased and watched directly on the device. It was a curious absence from the Apple TVs in those countries because although users could purchase TV shows from iTunes and on iOS devices (even stream it to the Apple TV with AirPlay) - until now they couldn’t purchase TV content directly from the Apple TV.

Apple hasn’t made any announcement about the update, but prices remain the same as they did previously. The update also introduces the “cloud locker” feature that was introduced with version 4.3 on the US Apple TV. If you are unaware of this feature, it allows you to play previously purchased TV content (the same feature is available for music, apps and books) - all thanks to iCloud.

[Via Engadget]

Instagram Now Boasts 15 Million Users

Just a little over 2 months since it celebrated its 1 year anniversary and milestone of 10 million users, Instagram has today revealed that they now have 15 million users. The announcement was made by Kevin Systrom during his speech at LeWeb ‘11 today.

As the above graph demonstrates, Instagram has grown at a stunning pace, and continues to do so at an even more rapid rate. Systrom only recently revealed that Instagram had gained an additional 2 million members in the month of November alone.

Instagram is still a small operation with staff of only 10 people - but Systrom has revealed that they do have 2 staff members working on a (much anticipated) Android version of the app.

[Via The Next Web]

Apple Begins Preparing For Its 12 Days Of Christmas Promotion

Update: The app has made its way onto a number of European stores including the British and German app stores.

Apple will this year again run its ‘12 Days of Christmas’ promotion after releasing the companion iOS app a few days ago.  The promotion will run between December 26 and January 6, with each day featuring different music, videos, apps and books available for free for 24 hours.

Apple has not yet revealed what content will be offered for free — but if they follow the promotion that they did last year it will see the app update each day, displaying that day’s offering for the respective region (it changes based on the country). The app is not yet available in all countries, but included below is Apple’s description of the app. It should be expected that Apple will soon start marketing the promotion through iTunes and through their website.

You and your friends can download a fantastic selection of songs, music videos, apps and books for free. Each download will only be available for 24 hours. Get our special 12 Days of Christmas app to make it even easier to access your gifts while you’re on the go.

Don’t have an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch? Don’t worry. Come back 26 December to download gifts from your computer.

If the companion app is available in your region, you can download it for free on the App Store.

Evernote Introduces Two New iPhone Apps To Help Remember People & Meals

Today, Evernote has introduced two new iPhone apps that tie into the Evernote service but are designed for a specific purpose. Evernote Hello is an app that is all about remembering people, whilst Evernote Food is designed to preserve the “experiences, thoughts and memories” that might be attatched to a meal.

Evernote Hello is designed to help users remember people they meet by asking for a picture, a time of when they met and a context for the meet. The app is constructed so that users can simply hand over their phones (if they are comfortable with that) so that the person they are meeting can easily enter their name, contact details and take a quick picture of themselves. An interesting addition to the app is the ‘Encounters’ feature, this allows you to add details of the meetings - from location, photos and any notes.

All of your Evernote Hello entries are synchronized with Evernote so that you can view them from any device or computer. This means that you can search for people inside of Evernote. When you’re trying to find a particular note that you created during a meeting with someone, you can search for them and then look for notes created around the same time. More context!

Evernote Food isn’t just about taking photos of your meals, it’s about remembering restaurants, remembering meals with friends and family and remembering that great meal you made yourself. You’ll be able to store photos, photo captions, venues, notes and tags about any meals and then share them with Twitter, Facebook or email.

The Evernote Hello approach is focused on visuals and narrative. For example, if you’re trying to remember the name of someone you met at a big company meeting, tap on the face of anyone else you met at the same time. That will show you the encounter along with all the other people that you met together. By exploring these shared experiences, you’re able to find the people you want and strengthen your own memory.

Evernote Food and Evernote Hello are both available for free on the App Store.

iBooks 1.5 Available Now, Includes Night Mode, Full-Screen Layout, New Fonts And More

A few hours ago Apple released an update to their iBooks app. Now at version 1.5, the update adds some significant features to improve the reading experience of the app. The release notes below detail those improvements:

  • Nighttime reading theme makes reading books in the dark easier on the eyes.
  • Full-screen layout lets you focus on the words without distraction.
  • iBooks now features an improved selection of fonts, including Athelas, Charter, Iowan, and Seravek.
  • Beautiful new classic covers for public domain books.
  • A redesigned annotation palette makes it easier to choose a color for your highlighted text.

You can download iBooks for free from the App Store.