Posts tagged with "iPhone"

Apple Bans Charity Donations in iPhone Apps

Apple has banned charity donations on its iPhone apps, and nonprofit organizations that rely on monetary gifts to help them with their causes claim this could hurt their business, according to a recent New York Times report.


According to the article, people who use the iPhone apps created by charities or organizations cannot donate money directly through the application, they are re-directed to the organization’s website.

“When you’re popped out of an app, you then have to go through a whole bunch of clicks to make a donation,” Beth Kanter, CEO of consulting firm for nonprofits Zoetica, told the Times. “It’s cumbersome and it doesn’t have to be.”

She plans on replacing her iPhone with an Android device, which allows app users to donate directly through apps. Kanter has started an online petition to get the attention of Apple to convince them a policies change.

An Apple spokesperson declined to explain Apple’s reasoning for this ban but told the NY Times, “We are proud to have many applications on our App Store which accept charitable donations via their Web sites.”

Earlier this year, after the earthquake in Haiti, Apple asked for donations for the American Red Cross through iTunes, establishing what some considered as a model for iPhone-assisted donations. That increased speculation that the real issue was money.

Apple takes 30 percent of purchases made from the App Store, and that would be frowned upon if it were to be taken out of a charitable donation.

I can understand why Apple won’t let charity donations work through iPhone apps  - they set a precedent in their rules and if you bend it for one group, how many others will also try something similar. A few extra taps aren’t going to ruin your experience or busy day.

[via The New York Times]

Apple Has Plenty of ‘TIME’ for Great Gadgets

TIME magazine has listed 50 Top 10 lists on their web site this year - 50! Surely an Apple product made it into at least one of these lists, right? Of course, we wouldn’t have posted this unless there was. Silly question.

Time’s Top 10 Gadgets (for 2010) listed not one, but four, Apple products in this category. The iPad took top honors (of course!), the newly-revamped 11-in. MacBook Air took third place, the iPhone 4 took sixth place and the new Apple TV took seventh (with a much improved form factor, capacity and functions). That’s much respect to Apple, and well deserved. You can see the entire list below. Read more

Cut the Rope: Holiday Gift Now Available - Free and Universal

Even if we don’t talk games much, we have our favorite gems from the App Store. Cut the Rope, addictive puzzle game by ZeptoLab, is surely one of them: available both on the iPhone and iPad featuring beautiful and colorful graphics, in CtR you’ll have to literally “cut ropes” to let a tiny frog reach candies. Something like that. Still, it’s addictive, and that should be enough.

ZeptoLab today released a Christmas-themed version of the app, which features new levels and a “new stocking feature”. Most of all, the app is available for free in the App Store and it’s universal. It’s a great deal offered by publisher Chillingo you sure can’t miss, so head over the App Store and download it now.

With all the games released this week (Infinity Blade, anyone?), Cut the Rope is another little masterpiece to add to your weekend game list.

New “antid0te” Jailbreak Hack to Bring ASLR to iOS Devices

While iOS devices are hardened with DEP (Data Execution Prevention) and application sandboxing to aid in preventing malicious code from touching running processes, you find it combination with ASLR (Address Space Layout Randomization) which makes it difficult for attackers to find where processes are located in the first place. ASLR isn’t currently implemented in iOS devices, but a German hacker has developed a new Jailbreaking method which may provide Jailbreakers with some additional peace of mind.

Read more

Dropkick: Simple To-Do List App With Cloud Sync

You know we love OmniFocus here at MacStories, and we just can’t get enough of the possibilities offered by OmniGroup’s powerful GTD software. I understand, however, that GTD is not for everyone. Some people are looking forward to having a simple system on their mobile devices and computers, an app to enter tasks in a list and that’s it. Sounds like a solid and affordable plan, right? With only one major problem,though: sync.

People looking for such a simple system would also like to be able to effortlessly sync their tasks in the cloud. As far as I know, there’s no good and simple app that lets you enter tasks on the iPhone, have them backed up online, and find them again in another simple and minimal app on the desktop. If there’s one, please let me know in the comments.

Still, Dropkick is here to solve this problem: it’s a minimal and elegant application that lets you a) enter tasks and b) sync them to all your devices. That’s really it. Read more

Real Racing 2: Coming On December 16th At $9.99, We Can’t Wait

A few minutes ago Firemint announced the full details behind Real Racing 2, the sequel to the popular racing game that came out on the iPhone and iPad earlier this year. The game is coming next Thursday, on December 16th, and it will be available for $9.99 in the App Store.

Real Racing 2 will feature 30 officially licensed cars with a new career mode that will grant you over 10 hours of gameplay, a 16 player online gaming (no other iOS game did this before, I think), 5 game modes and 15 different locations. There will be Game Center integration and you will be able to see vehicle damage in real time (finally), 5 different camera angles and several control modes.

Real Racing 2 basically looks like a huge sequel, and a must-have for iOS users. The online multiplayer sounds fantastic, and the screenshots posted by Firemint are simply delicious.

Check out a trailer below. Read more

Favorites: My Phone App Replacement

Every time I post screenshots of my iPhone homescreen here on MacStories, I get comments and emails asking me about “that blue icon” next to Captio in my dock. Since I wasn’t able to reply to all those comments and emails and I love to talk about apps that change my workflow, I want to clear the air on this app and write about it.

The app is called “Favorites”, it’s been around for a while in the App Store and it’s developed by Matt Legend Gemmell over at Instinctive Code. It’s a very straightforward app that lets you create shortcuts for your favorite contacts and tap on them to initiate a phone call. Think of it as a homescreen for your contacts. Read more

iFiles: Now With S3 Support, AirPrint and Text Editing In The Cloud

iFiles is one of my all-time favorite iOS apps for iPhone and iPad. I use it on a daily basis to get files in the devices and out of them, thanks to the app’s powerful sharing capabilities that allow it to get recognized on your local network as a web server. Plus, as I wrote in my review, iFiles was meant for a cloud-based workflow, for all those users who daily play around with items stored on Google Docs, Flickr, Rackspace, and so forth.

The latest 1.8 update, which showed up in iTunes a few minutes ago and I’ve installed on my iPhone, doesn’t come with a huge set of new features – but the ones that are there make this app a must-have, again. Read more

MoneyTron: Innovative Financial App for iPhone

I remember I installed MoneyTron on my iPhone back in August. Back then I thought it was cool, I gave it a brief spin and decided I would review it on MacStories in a few weeks. Weeks passed, we launched a new MacStories, iOS 4’s folders started getting crowded and I forgot about MoneyTron.

Now I think it’s time to talk about MoneyTron, which is a sexy little gem of a financial app. As you may remember, I’m not exactly into this kind of apps: mostly because I’m looking for something simple yet capable of adapting to my complex setup. It’s not easy to find an app that can do that. Most iPhone apps are geared towards simplicity but they don’t take into account (no pun intended) that when it’s about managing finances, simplicity is overrated. Sometimes you need the powerful tools to  get ahold of your transactions and keep everything clear.

MoneyTron offers a variety of innovative features I haven’t seen in any other financial apps for iPhone. Read more