July 2012 In Review

July was an interesting month for MacStories as we covered the launch of the latest version of OS X, Mountain Lion, and launched our first eBook. Containing all our Mountain Lion coverage from the site in addition to exclusive articles, the book was a challenging but immensely rewarding project. With the exception of some advice from a few trusted people, we handled the book’s creation entirely by ourselves and are very proud of the end result. If you haven’t grabbed a copy yet, it’s not too late to change that — and remember that 30% of all proceeds will go directly to the very worthy cause that is the American Cancer Society.

Besides Mountain Lion, the other notable pieces of news were Google’s acquisition of Sparrow, and the all-but-confirmed rumour that the next iPhone and iPad mini will be announced on September 12th. Apps-wise, July was a quiet month as developers readied theirs for Mountain Lion, but we did see the release of the Tweetbot for Mac alpha along with Rovio’s new franchise, Amazing Alex. For stories, we had two great interviews, an excellent piece on discovering and making music on the iPad, talked about the apps and tools we use to write more efficiently, and created some hands-on examples of what the rumoured 7.85” iPad would look and feel like.

Jump the break for the full month in review, and feel free to read previous ‘Month in Review’ editions from 2012.

Mountain Lion Coverage

Announcing Our First eBook

Mountain Lion: The MacStories Review

Mountain Lion: Notification Center Explained

Mountain Lion: Getting The Most Out Of Messages

Mountain Lion: Game Center

Mountain Lion Links

iPhone, iPad mini to be unveiled in September?

Reported by iMore and confirmed by AllThingsD, The Verge, and The Loop, the next iPhone is rumoured to be unveiled at an event on September 12th. iMore also believes that the new iPhone will be released on September 21st and that the iPad mini and new iPod nano will be unveiled at the same event. Meanwhile, Chuck Skoda made a roundup of all the rumours surrounding the next iPhone and reported iPad mini.

Apple’s App Updates

This month Apple pushed out a number of Mountain Lion updates for their Mac apps. At the top of the list was an update to Pages, Numbers, and Keynote that added support for iCloud and the MacBook Pro with Retina display, but Aperture, iPhoto, iMovie, and Xcode all received updates as well. Even the iOS iWork apps and iTunes U received updates.

Google Acquires Sparrow, Facebook Acquires Acrylic

The acquisition of two notable independent iOS and Mac developers by two tech giants were also announced literally within hours of each other. The developers behind the popular email client Sparrow were acquired by Google in order to work on Gmail and “accomplish a bigger vision”, followed swiftly by the announcement that they would cease all further development on Sparrow. Meanwhile, Facebook acquired Acrylic, makers of Pulp and Wallet, and announced that the developers will join Facebook’s design team.

Corrupt App Store Updates Cause Problems For Users & Developers

Early in July a number of app updates became corrupted on Apple’s CDN, which lead to problems when users updated the apps only to find they would just crash on launch. Apple rectified the issue in about a day, and took steps to alleviate the situation by re-issuing the app updates so that those affected could update the app again without deleting and reinstalling it. This also had the happy side effect of reseting app ratings for the affected versions, helping developers who had been burned by the problem.

Apple Cracks Down On Sites Selling Access To iOS Betas

After Wired reported in June about websites that had been selling access to iOS betas by activating device UDIDs from a developer account, we followed up on the report and found that some of the sites Wired cited had been shut down. Contacting some of the people behind the sites, it was revealed that Apple had sent DMCA take-down notices to many of the sites selling beta access.

Everything Else:

MobileMe Shuts Down

Apple Testing New Genius Bar Layout

App Store Adding New “Food & Drink” Category

Ars Technica Investigates The Future Of Thunderbolt Cables

Apple Ranks 55th in Fortune Global 500, Up From 111 in 2011

Apple: New iPad Arrives in China on Friday, July 20

Dropbox Doubles Pro Subscribers’ Space

Apple Builds Mosaic With Deconstructed iOS Icons for Store Opening

Apple Q3 2012 Results: $35 Billion Revenue, 26 Million iPhones, 17 Million iPads, 4 Million Macs Sold

Apple Pulls Lion From The Mac App Store With The Release Of Mountain Lion

NYT: Apple Considering Stake In Twitter

Mountain Lion Downloaded 3 Million Times In Four Days

Apple v. Samsung, The Story So Far

Ive: “Our Goal Isn’t To Make Money”

Hulu Plus Arrives on Apple TV

The Highlights

Sunstroke – A Solid Fever Client for iPhone

Twitter, Twitter 4.3, and The Mixed Message

Tweetbot for Mac: Public Alpha Review

Rovio’s Amazing Alex Is Now Available

Checkmark Review

.Mail is Coming To Your Dock

Google Earth 7 for iOS Brings 3D Imagery to iPhone 4S, 2nd and 3rd Generation iPads

WriteUp 3.2 Adds Swipe Selection On iPad

Everything Else

Analytiks

Grab Key Codes Directly From Your Dashboard With “KeyCodes”

Guitar Pitch Pipe Lets You Quickly Tune Your Guitar

Scanner Pro Gets iCloud Support For Scans

Why Apple’s Passbook Doesn’t Do Credit Cards (Yet)

FoxTube: A Great YouTube App Replacement for iOS

AppBot Sends Developers A Daily Digest Containing New Reviews Of Their Apps

Butane for Campfire

Alfred 1.3 Improves System Navigation with “File Buffer”

Apple’s Podcasts 1.0.1 Update Feels a Lot Faster

Browsing Instagram and Facebook Photos with Cooliris

EverClip and EverWebClipper 2.0

Gmail 1.3: Faster, but Still a Web App

Five

OmniFocus and Calendar Notifications

Quickly Send Webpages To Evernote with EverWebClipper

MacStories Interviews: Brett Kelly

The Current State Of Music-Making and Discovery On The iPad

The Case For A 7″ iPod [Updated]

MacStories Interviews: Brett Terpstra

Launch Center Pro and OmniFocus

Get A Sense Of What A 7.85″ iPad mini Would Be Like

New Apps & Tools For More Efficient Writing

An Apple I In My Town

Terpstra Day

Faster Searches With Bang On and Launch Center Pro