Posts tagged with "iOS"

Rdio Launches API for Mobile Devices

Music streaming service Rdio, quite popular in the US and Canada but currently unavailable due to regional restrictions in the rest of the world, announced yesterday the release of an API for iOS and Android devices that will allow developers to build apps that are integrated with Rdio’s music and social functionalities. The API – documentation available here and here – will let third-party devs build apps that search “all the artists, songs, albums, playlists, and top charts in Rdio’s catalog of over 8.5 million songs.” On top of that, the API will also bring playlist creation and editing outside of the official Rdio app, as well as the possibility to show a user’s Heavy Rotation, collections or follow other people. For a first release, it sounds like a solid API for iOS and Android.

Attending Google I/O 2011? Take a closer look at our Mobile API on Android devices at Rdio’s Developer Sandbox at Moscone Center in San Francisco. If you won’t be there or want to see the API in action yourself, download the Rdio Music Quiz from the iPhone App store.

While our Mobile API doesn’t yet support our affiliate program, it will soon. So make sure to sign up for it now and start building that incredible mobile app you always wanted to make.

The current API and service terms won’t let developers create paid apps that directly plug into Rdio. Still, with Spotify struggling to launch in the US and an impressive userbase and app selection after a few months, Rdio has the chance to maintain a healthy ecosystem for music streaming apps in the US, and take it from there to Europe. Rdio has big plans for sure, and it’ll be interesting to follow its developments in the next months, especially after Apple will unveil its rumored cloud music service with full labels’ support.

Duke Nukem Forever Also Coming To iOS?

As noted by TouchArcade, popular yet never released console and PC game Duke Nukem Forever might be coming to iOS devices, too. Duke Nukem Forever is particularly interesting as a title as it’s become synonym of vaporware online: development started in 1997, but the game never actually came out (in spite of promotional material and screenshots being handed out to the press and fans) due to multiple delays from the original developers, 3D Realms. If you’ve been following Duke Nukem Forever’s history throughout the years, you know that the brand’s userbase came to the point where many lost any kind of hope in seeing the game officially out: that was until 2010, when game studio Gearbox revealed they had picked DNF off 3D Realms’ hands and were busy working on a full adaption and rewrite for current-gen consoles. They announced a release date for May 2010, but the game was delayed again. It should be finally coming out after 14 years on June 9, 2011, and it’s already available for pre-purchase on Steam.

Digging into the game’s manual, a TouchArcade reader found out the developers included “Apple App Store Additional License Terms” – a bunch of legalese that most gamers usually skip, but it’s intended to inform users about licensing terms, agreements, and so forth. This could mean a mobile version of Duke Nukem Forever is also in the works, which wouldn’t be surprise considering the App Store userbase nowadays and the fact that the Unreal Engine runs on iPhones and iPads. Gearbox hasn’t confirmed they’ll use the Unreal Engine in the game, but that’s a possibility if DNF is really being ported to iOS devices. As TouchArcade notes, the license terms might also refer to the Mac App Store, although Gearbox specifically stated there weren’t any announcements related to the Mac or Linux platforms – and the terms clearly mention the iPhone and iPod touch in regards to the software license.

After all these years, it’d be nice to see the Duke on the iPad.

Microsoft Azure Toolkit for iOS Now Available

Following the release for Windows Phone 7 in March, Microsoft today announced the availability of the Azure toolkit for iOS, which can be downloaded now from GitHub. Similarly to Amazon Web Services, Microsoft’s Azure is a cloud platform hosted on the company’s servers that allows developers to build, host and scale web applications. Today’s iOS toolkit includes resources and services for developers to integrate Azure in their iPhone and iPad apps, including an Objective-C library to work with Azure services (such as storage and push notifications), documentation, a sample iOS app with full Azure storage integration, as well full source code for the aforementioned Objective-C library with Xcode project files. More details on Azure Toolkit for iOS can be found here.

Last March we released the Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows Phone 7, which provided a set of generic services for Windows Azure.  This toolkit was the first step in enabling developers to build native experiences on multiple platforms using Windows Azure.  As the next step in this process, today we’re pleased to announce the release of the Windows Azure Toolkit for iOS.  This toolkit contains resources and services designed to make it easier for iOS developers to use Windows Azure.

Downloads:

Microsoft has also release a Cloud Ready package to simply the process of setting up Azure services, and it has announced the release of an Android toolkit for next month. [via The Next Web]

Amazon Cloud Player Now Works with iOS Safari

Back in late March, Amazon launched Cloud Player for the web and Android devices, an online interface that, relying on music uploaded to your Amazon account via Cloud Drive, allowed you to stream music from the cloud via a web browser or the native Android application, built into the OS with direct connection to Amazon’s servers to fetch and stream songs on the go. The service, however, wasn’t working with iOS devices, and it wasn’t a Flash issue: somehow, the website itself didn’t want to cooperate with Mobile Safari on iPhones, iPod touches and iPads. We noted that there was a way to make it work by using an alternative browser like iCab Mobile and changing the app’s user agent, but it was convoluted and far from being a reliable alternative to playing music locally in the iPod app, or from third-party services like MOG and Spotify, which do have native iOS apps. The lack of iOS compatibility for Cloud Player left many wondering whether the company intentionally decided to block the service, betting exclusively on the Android platform – which is the foundation for Amazon’s new app marketplace.

As noted by TechCrunch today, however, Cloud Player seems to be working in the iOS browser now. Songs stream just fine, and they even pause automatically during an incoming phone call or if a Push Notification is received. It’s unclear how Amazon exactly “unlocked” the feature and why it went online so quietly without any major announcement, but my guess is the Cloud Player team simply added a string to allow Mobile Safari to start a QuickTime streaming session within the browser.

You might think this had to due with Flash or another technology that iOS wasn’t compatible with, but it wasn’t. It looked like something else was simply blocking it from working. Well, good news. That’s no longer the case.

If you visit Amazon’s Cloud Player through the Safari web browser on an iOS device, you’ll see that it does in fact now work. You’ll first hit a warning page telling you that your browser is not supported, but just ignore that. Click into the music in your drive and it will begin playing.

MG Siegler notes the implementation is still far from perfect (uploading requires Flash, but you wouldn’t be able to upload files from iOS anyway) and the solution implies listening to music in a regular browser window. Still, it’s a start for Amazon, and it reignites speculation of a native Cloud Player app for iOS coming in the near future. The website, for now, is restricted to US access only.

Rumors in the past months pointed at Apple building a full-featured music streaming service based on iTunes, wrapped inside the upcoming iCloud infrastructure for Mac and iOS devices. There’s little doubt at this point Apple hasn’t at least considered the possibility of letting users upload their music collection or subscribe to an à la carte service for streaming songs off the cloud. With the WWDC roughly a month away, we should know more about Apple’s cloud plans and new music options soon.

iOS 5 To Feature Over The Air OS Updates?

According to 9to5 Mac, Apple is preparing to implement the capability for users to get over-the-air OS updates for the iPhone from iOS 5. Android and HP/Palm’s webOS users have long had the convenience of having OS updates pushed to their phone as soon as an update is available. Whereas users of iOS devices have had to resort to manually connecting the device to their computer with iTunes where it is downloaded and then installed.

9to5 Mac claims that multiple sources have said to them that the new feature will debut in iOS 5, allowing any subsequent updates to be pushed to the device. According to their sources, Apple has been discussing the feature with Verizon since early this year and are hoping to reach an agreement with them. Although it isn’t known whether other carriers internationally, or even AT&T in the US, have been approached by Apple over the feature.

Apple clearly has the fundamental technology for over-the-air updates working because the Apple TV (iOS version from late last year) is able to update itself without any computer connection. However there are two fundamental stumbling blocks before over-the-air updates could be seen to be feasible. Current updates are over 600MB, which is a substantial size to be downloading over any 3G connections. To get carriers to be happy with allowing the updates, let alone achieving an agreement with them to exclude them from any download caps, Apple would have to substantially trim that size down. The second issue is that of backups, currently before an update is installed, iTunes will create a back-up in case of a failed update. A cloud based back-up system is the obvious, but perhaps complex, solution to this issue.

Following the article, several people in the jailbreaking scene made some comments about the feasibility of over-the-air updates. In particular, @chronic and @chpwn make comments that a lot of the code required for over-the-air updates have already made their way into iOS4. For example, the MobileSoftwareUpdate.framework is in all iOS4 devices but has only been “fleshed out” on the Apple TV.

[Via 9to5 Mac]

Amid Rumors of Interest In iOS Devices, Intel Unveils Ivy Bridge Chips with 3D Transistors

Earlier today Intel officially unveiled the technology that will power its next-generation of chips, codenamed “Ivy Bridge”, with production set to start for PCs and servers by the end of 2011. After a decade-long research in Intel’s labs, the company announced a new 3D transistor structure named “Tri-Gate” that will allow to boost performances and efficiency in the new chips that Intel will also make for mobile devices and tablets. This announcement comes after speculation earlier this week about Intel willing to consider making processors for Apple’s iOS devices – which currently feature CPUs manufactured by Samsung, a company that’s at war with Apple over several patent infringement claims as previously reported. Intel hasn’t disclosed any plan to make chips for Apple nor did Apple comment on any of these rumors, but the mobile versions of Ivy bridge featuring 3D transistors for optimized speeds and battery life could surely be an option for Apple in future devices.

Intel’s 3-D Tri-Gate transistors enable chips to operate at lower voltage with lower leakage, providing an unprecedented combination of improved performance and energy efficiency compared to previous state-of-the-art transistors. The capabilities give chip designers the flexibility to choose transistors targeted for low power or high performance, depending on the application.

The 22nm 3-D Tri-Gate transistors provide up to 37 percent performance increase at low voltage versus Intel’s 32nm planar transistors. This incredible gain means that they are ideal for use in small handheld devices, which operate using less energy to “switch” back and forth. Alternatively, the new transistors consume less than half the power when at the same performance as 2-D planar transistors on 32nm chips.

Intel’s first 22nm Ivy Bridge microprocessor was demoed today running on a server, laptop and desktop computer. Production is slated by the end of the year, with Intel likely demonstrating the power of the Ivy Bridge platform with more demoes over the next months.