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Posts tagged with "apple"

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.

Flipboard For iPhone Now Available, Includes New Cover Stories Feature

Flipboard 1.7 has just gone live in the App Store and it brings support for the iPhone and iPod touch. The iPhone version has been long anticipated and it has launched with a new feature called Cover Stories, which at the moment is exclusive to the iPhone and iPod touch. Cover Stories is a feature that curates a selection of articles and images being shared with you - it will even become ‘smarter’ over time. Whilst it isn’t yet available for the iPad version, the Flipboard team say that they are working on bringing the feature to the iPad.

With Flipboard for iPhone we’re introducing Cover Stories — one place to quickly catch up on some of the most interesting news, updates and photos being shared with you right now. The more you interact with your friends and the stories being shared, the smarter Cover Stories gets. You can refine what appears here by adding content to your Flipboard, muting anyone you’d rather not hear from, and connecting to your social networks. Cover Stories will be coming to your iPad in the near future.

The Los Angeles Times sat down with Flipboard CEO, Mike McCue about the new release. He revealed that the Flipboard team, now nearly 50 people, has spent most of the year developing the iPhone version - making sure it wasn’t just a shrunken version of the iPad app.

Building on Flipboard’s deep links to Twitter, Facebook and other social networks, McCue wants to harness the huge amount of data being generated by users of these major services to build a kind of social media nerve center – a digital brain that listens to all your social networks and picks the most important and interesting stories, and presents them to you in a simple and organized way.

The Flipboard team has also a made a short advert for the new iPhone version of Flipboard - we’ve included it and the version 1.7 release notes of Flipboard below the break. We’ll have some more thorough thoughts on the new iPhone version of Flipboard in the next few days - so stay tuned for that. You can download the universal Flipboard app for free on the App Store.

[Flipboard Blog via The Verge]

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Global BBC iPlayer App Coming To The iPhone & iPod Touch This Thursday

Update: The iPhone version of the BBC iPlayer (Global) app is now available for free on the App Store - it comes as a universal app that runs on both the iPad and iPhone.

The global version of BBC iPlayer first began rolling out internationally five months ago and is now available in sixteen countries around the world. So far the video-on-demand service, offering BBC content to an international audience, has only been available on the iPad. That will change this Thursday when the BBC iPlayer app will become available for the iPhone and iPod touch.

The announcement was made by Jana Bennett, President of Worldwide Networks and Global BBC iPlayer who noted that “moving to iPhone and iPod Touch allows us to take the service to a significant new potential audience and deliver fantastic programme content from the BBC and the UK’s creative industry”.

This platform extension shows how Global iPlayer isn’t just about moving TV to tablet devices, it’s also about a mobile strategy – about truly getting TV everywhere in a way that it hasn’t been before.

Bennett also announced that programs from DRG will also begin to appear on the BBC iPlayer service in early 2012. DRG is a program distributor that owns programs such as Peep Show, Father Ted, Black Books and Shameless.

[Via The Next Web]

European Commission Begins Antitrust Investigation Into Ebook Publishers, Apple

In a statement released today, the European Commission has revealed that it is opening formal antitrust proceedings to investigate the possible presence of anti-competitive practices within the ebook industry.  The investigation will target a number of international publishers including Harper Collins, Simon & Schuster and Penguin. The Commission will also be investigating whether Apple has helped the publishers engage in anti-competitive practices.

The European Commission has opened formal antitrust proceedings to investigate whether international publishers Hachette Livre, Harper Collins, Simon & Schuster, Penguin and Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holzbrinck have, possibly with the help of Apple, engaged in anti-competitive practices affecting the sale of e-books in the European Economic Area, in breach of EU antitrust rules.  [Shortened]

The Commission will examine the ‘agency agreements’ entered into by the publishers — with concerns that they may breach EU antitrust rules that “prohibit cartels and restrictive business practices”. It isn’t yet known for how long the commission will run for.

The Commission will in particular investigate whether these publishing groups and Apple have engaged in illegal agreements or practices that would have the object or the effect of restricting competition in the EU or in the EEA.

[Via The Verge]

Apple Could Set Up Shop Next to Facebook’s Server Farm in Oregon

Facebook could have a new neighbor as Apple decides whether Prineville, Oregon, would make a suitable location for their next data center (codenamed Maverick). Apple is reportedly looking at a 160 acre plot of land in Crook County that’s a quarter mile south of Facebook’s nearby sever farm. Apple’s option to buy the land will expire at the end of the month, so a decision has to be made soon.

Sources with inside knowledge of Apple’s plans have told The Oregonian that Apple might be looking to take advantage of Oregon’s low power cost and property tax exemptions. Server farms are popular in Oregon, where rural “enterprise zones” free companies from paying property taxes on computer equipment, and the mild climate helps offset energy costs.

There are a couple of snags hanging up the decision. One revolves around a tax on intangibles, which take the value of a company’s brand into consideration. Intangible fees can undercut the tax exemptions that companies like Apple, Facebook, and Google are granted.

On the topic of energy, Apple’s plans aren’t finalized as they await word on whether Prineville can provide enough electricity for their Data Center. Apple will have to wait behind other local companies as transmission capacity is increased via the Bonneville Power Administration. Rackspace has already opted to build their new server farm elsewhere (Morrow County). However, the region’s transmission capacity is looking to be expanded a year ahead of schedule thanks to state delegation, and it’s possible Apple might have an open door thanks to recent developments.

To serve Facebook and other data centers in Crook County, the BPA says that it must upgrade the nearby Ponderosa Substation, add transmission lines and eventually add another substation. The full build-out would take two or three years and cost around $26.5 million.

Apple’s next data center will continue bolster their online offerings such as iCloud, which will require 31-Megawatts of power to operate. Currently, electrical transmission in Prineville is maxed out.

Data centers also generate franchise fees for local governments with their high electricity use, and Apple would bring its Prineville property onto local tax rolls by acquiring it from the county.

Apple’s data center will bolster their online offerings such as iCloud, mirroring the data center that was constructed in Maiden, North Carolina. The Maiden data center came under scrutiny as it was questioned whether the tax exemptions granted to Apple was worth the number of jobs (only 50) it brought to the region. While the data center won’t solve Crook County’s record 15.8 percent unemployment rate, the data center would provide a short term stimulus as construction of the facility (and expansion of other facilities like Facebook’s) takes place.

[The Oregonian via Macgasm]

Apple Denied A Preliminary Injunction Against Samsung Galaxy Products In The US

There have been a lot of twists and turns in the Apple and Samsung legal battle and the latest milestone saw a US judge deny Apple’s request for a preliminary injunction to stop sales of some Galaxy devices in the US. What this means is that Samsung can continue to sell all their Galaxy devices in the US for the time being. Interestingly, Judge Lucy Koh noted that Apple will likely succeed in proving that Samsung’s Galaxy products infringe Apple’s patents, but she didn’t grant the injunction because it wasn’t demonstrated that it would cause irreparable harm to Apple if the Galaxy products stayed on sale.

The Verge got a statement from Samsung on the ruling:

Samsung welcomes today’s ruling denying Apple’s request for a preliminary injunction. This ruling confirms our long-held view that Apple’s arguments lack merit. In particular, the court has recognized that Samsung has raised substantial questions about the validity of certain Apple design patents. We are confident that we can demonstrate the distinctiveness of Samsung’s mobile devices when the case goes to trial next year. We will continue to assert our intellectual property rights and defend against Apple’s claims to ensure our continued ability to provide innovative mobile products to consumers.

It was also revealed yesterday that Apple had given some work-around options to Samsung for how they could side-step their iPhone and iPad design patents. Matt Macari from The Verge has an excellent article that covers the issue in great depth and clarity. In short, Apple had to make a list of alternative design choices to make the argument that Samsung did have other choices when designing their smartphones and tablets and they chose to emulate Apple instead. Some of the alternatives Apple made include:

  • Front surface that isn’t black
  • Display screens that aren’t centred on the front face and have substantial lateral borders.
  • No front bezel
  • Front surface that isn’t entirely flat
  • Cluttered appearance

[The Verge (1) (2)]

Rumor: Microsoft Working On Office Apps For The iPad

Microsoft may be working on creating iPad versions of its popular Office Suite apps according to The Daily. The Daily’s sources say that the apps would likely work with Microsoft’s new online service, Office 365, and be price-competitive with Apple’s Pages, Numbers and Keynote iOS apps which are sold around the $10 price point. The move wouldn’t be completely surprising given the fact that Microsoft has already developed a number of iOS apps, including the impressive Bing iPad app.

No detail is provided in the report about how powerful the iPad versions of Office will be — nor about what kind of interface would be used. A release date is not known either, but they could potentially launch in the first half of 2012.

The report also notes that a new version of Office is also in development for OS X Lion, with a release date of next year sometime. However typically the OS X releases of Office have experienced a one year delay after the Windows version is released. Consequently, with the next version of Office for Windows not expected until sometime next year, a 2012 release for the OS X version as well would buck the recent trend of Office releases. It should also be noted that Microsoft has already signalled that an update is coming for Office for Mac 2011 that will bring support for a number of Lion features.

[The Daily via The Verge]