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Posts tagged with "iOS"

Google Rolling Out “Instant Previews” for iOS Devices

In the past months, Google has been very busy improving the experience of iOS users on products like Gmail, Google Docs and the Google homepage: Google Docs editing came to Mobile Safari, then Google launched Instant for Mobile, which similarly to the desktop lets you see search results as you type. Most recently, Google has enabled Cloud Print support for Gmail in iOS Safari and improved the mobile weather widget on its homepage.

As noted by 9to5mac, Google has also begun testing a new feature for iOS browsers (and Android as well, we guess) which hasn’t been officially announced yet but was spotted by some users. Google “Instant Previews” will let you have a quick preview of a website by tapping on the magnifying glass icon – again, just like on desktop browsers you get a preview inside a popup menu on google.com. On iOS though, it looks like the feature will really be redesigned to sport a much better touch interaction: previews will open in a dedicated window that reminds of Safari’s tabs and you can flick through them to quickly preview search results.

It is unclear at this moment whether the feature is being tested among some users in the United States or worldwide, and when Google plans to launch it or at least announce it.

Coming Soon: iPhone Voice Control for Everything

Voice Control on the iPhone and iPod touch, in spite of the number of commands it supports, is far from “full-featured”. Sure you can ask the iPhone to play and pause music, even call people – but you can’t do more. A new tweak by developer chpwn, soon to be released in Cydia, will give more power to Voice Control by letting it open apps, launch URLs and perform any Activator action, like take a screenshot.

VoiceActivator will have a dedicated settings panel where you’ll be able to create the voice shortcuts you want, and have them recognized by iOS’ built-in support for voice command. So say you want to open MacStories in a new Safari page, assign “macstories” to a new action in VoiceActivator, speak it and Safari will launch. Just like that. Kind of fancy to show off to your friends, although I’m not really huge on the whole VoiceControl UI. Still, the possibilities VoiceActivator will open seem pretty neat.

The tweak will be released soon in Cydia. Demo video below. Read more

Rovio Announces “Angry Birds Rio”, Coming This March

There is a new Angry Birds game on the horizon, and this time it’ll be the result of an exclusive partnership between Rovio, the makers of the original game, and Hollywood studio 20th Century Fox. The game, named “Angry Birds Rio”, will be a crossover of Rovio’s series with the upcoming animated film Rio, which – guess what – tells the story of two birds, Blu and Jewel, that have to fight animal smugglers in Rio de Janeiro.

The new Angry Birds game will follow a plot similar to the movie: the original Angry Birds are kidnapped and taken to Rio de Janeiro, but they manage to escape and set out to save Blu and Jewel, the characters of the movie. Sounds like Rovio and 20th Century Fox really collaborated to make the series fit together – how couldn’t they, considering we’re talking about a blockbuster game and a new film from the creators of the Ice Age trilogy?

Angry Birds Rio will launch in March 2011 with 45 initial levels, and more will be added with software updates. The app will be released for “smartphone and tablets” – we guess iPhone and iPad support is pretty much obvious. No word on pricing yet, but we think $4.99 is the usual sweet spot. Full press release available here, and trailers of the movie and game embedded below. Read more

We Reviewed Berokyo For iPad: Now We’re Giving It Away

Berokyo is an app you never knew you needed until you actually get your hands on it: presenting a one of a kind management system that organizes your contacts, photos, documents, and media onto an array of bookshelves, you always have access to your most used content. We were especially excited by its capabilities with Dropbox, and now we have ten promocodes to giveaway thanks to the awesome developers at Think, Code, Release. Click past the break below for the full rundown of contest rules.

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Instagram Gains Native Twitterrific Support

Twitterrific by the Iconfactory is one of the most popular Twitter clients for iOS, and we’ve been hearing a brand new Mac version is around the corner as well. What at first may look like a minor update to Twitterrific for iPhone and iPad was released a few minutes ago in the App Store, and it adds a very welcome new feature: native Instagram support. I don’t know if any other Twitter app for iOS supports Instagram photos like Twitterrific does, but here’s the gist: instead of being forced to follow a link to Instagram to the actual website, Twitterrific will open the image into its dedicated popover, without leaving your timeline. That’s useful, considering how many people are using Instagram these days and how annoying it is to launch a web view every time. A similar integration can be seen on Twitter.com, where the inline media viewer can preview Instagram photos without opening a new browser tab.

The new Twitterrific update also introduces fixes to reduce API errors (I’ve been getting lots of them lately), support for photos shared on plixi and step.ly and restores the black theme as the default one. Last, Twitterrific finally supports the new Twitter links to tweets and usernames.

Twitterrific is available for free in the App Store. Our review here.

Infographic Confirms: iOS People Use Apps More Than Web Apps

As if that wasn’t obvious enough, now we have a fancy infographic to back up everyone’s theory that iOS users care more about native apps than web apps. Created by the guys over at Appsfire, which is a neat app discovery service, the report summarizes that users spend more time in software like Mail, Instagram, Dropbox and Skype rather than applications available on the open web, which account to 12% of usage among the 1,000 devices surveyed. According to Appsfire, 32% of the time is spent in telephony apps like Phone, Messages and Skype. Unsurprising, considering that the iPhone is, well, a phone.

As for the app vs. webapp debate, it’s worth mentioning that, for as much as web technologies have improved in the past years, some functionalities of native applications can’t still be replicated in a web software. Especially on iOS, developers don’t have access to the camera app through Safari, and animations aren’t as smooth as apps written in native Cocoa Touch language. It’d be great to see webapps rise to a true level of competition over time, but right now – just take a look at the infographic below. [TechCrunch via Appsfire]

Eric Schmidt: “Steve Jobs Is Absolutely Brilliant”→

Eric Schmidt: “Steve Jobs Is Absolutely Brilliant”

Soon-to-be-ex Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt has some nice words about Apple, iOS and Steve Jobs:

Schmidt also took on Google’s competition with Apple. Google partners with Apple, he said, on search, maps and YouTube. It competes, of course, on phones. Google also might in theory compete with Apple’s Macintosh computer business with its Chrome OS hardware that Google hopes “to announce later this year,” Schmidt said.

“Steve is absolutely brilliant,” said Schmidt, referring to Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, where Schmidt was a longtime board member. “(He’s) the most successful CEO in the world anywhere.” Comparing Apple’s iPhone and iPad platform to Android, he said: “They managed to build an elegant, scalable, closed system. Google is attempting to do something with a completely different approach.

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