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Tag: ipad

  • How Many Ports Of Myst Do We Really Need?

    If you have been a gamer since the early 90s, you are probably aware of Cyan World’s Myst series. I got my start on the sequel, Riven, but I went back to play the original as well. I never actually got into the other games, but they’re decently popular. They’re apparently popular enough to warrant a port for every single platform in the known universe.

    The latest platform to get a port of Myst is the iPad 2 and the new iPad. You may be confused since Cyan Worlds has already released Myst for the iPhone and iPad. You would be correct, but this is RealMyst. The updated remake of the original Myst replaces the admittedly ugly pre-rendered visuals with real time free-roaming 3D visuals.

    “This is not your father’s Myst,” said Rand Miller, founder of Cyan Worlds. “To explore the islands and Ages of Myst in realtime… it’s an amazing feeling. So much went into creating this experience – years of development, almost a gigabyte of textures, models, sounds, music, and video. This is a must-have App.”

    If the founder of Cyan says that it’s a must-have app, it must be good. All joking aside, RealMyst is actually a pretty decent game. I can’t vouch for how well the touch screen controls work, but first-person adventure games seem to be better suited for touchscreen controls than other game types.

    If you already purchased Myst on iOS, you might not want to get RealMyst. Beyond the obvious graphical enhancements, RealMyst includes a few new ages for players to explore that expands the story of the original. This release is pretty much intended for those who have never played the original though, so don’t expect any new features outside of being on the iPad.

    If you just hate iOS, or mobile gaming in general, you can rest easy knowing that a version of Myst will also be released on the 3DS on July 24. If you don’t have a 3DS, you can always pick up a copy of Myst on the Sega Saturn, PlayStation, PS3, PSP, Jaguar CD, AmigaOS, CD-i, Nintendo DS and 3DO.

    RealMyst is now available in the App Store for a special introductory price of $6.99. It will go up to $9.99 at later date.

  • Pole Dancer App Will Turn Your 12-Year-Old Into “A Lap Dancing Sexpot”

    Last week we brought you a story that offered a little insight into the process of how Apple reviews and approves apps for the iOS App Store. It turns out that the App Store review team is a drastically understaffed group of people who sit in an office in Cupertino and are forced to spend a startling amount of time looking at pictures of penises. That, it seems, is part of the reason that the occasional app slips through the cracks – whether it’s a good app that gets rejected, or a bad app that gets let through. The fact is, sometimes these people make decisions that make you wonder just what the hell they were thinking.

    Case in point: Pole Dancer Pro. Pole Dancer Pro is a universal iOS app in the App Store’s health and fitness category. As you might expect from the name, the app is designed to teach the basics of pole dancing. Specifically, the description of the app says that the goal is “to help you enjoy getting into shape” while “transforming you into a lap dancing sexpot.”

    Perhaps unsurprisingly, the app is generating a bit of controversy. Now, I’m not one to judge. If somebody wants to learn pole dancing, they’re welcome to it. And if they want to use an app so they can do it in the privacy of their own home, that’s fine too. What’s raising eyebrows, though, is the app’s age limit. Ordinarily you’d expect an app like this to be rated 17+. In this case, you’d be wrong:

    Pold Dancer Pro Rated 12+

    Yep, you read that right. An app that teaches people to pole dance is rated 12+. Now, I’m the dad of a young daughter, and I get that there’s a tendency to be a bit overprotective. All the same, I like to think that when she starts dating, I’ll be pretty cool about the whole thing. I mean really, she’ll be 30, so who am I to interfere? Seriously, though, the fact that Apple rated this 12+ is a little creepy. Call me a prude if you want, but I maintain that a 12-year-old has no business learning to be a “lap dancing sexpot.”

    Fortunately for dads like me, though, there’s good news. The app itself is clearly aimed at adults, not pre-teens, so this is almost certainly a screw-up on Apple’s part, rather than a deliberate marketing decision by the app’s developer. Which means that you can bet that Apple will be changing the rating before the day is out.

  • U.K. Judge Declares Galaxy Tab “Not As Cool” As iPad

    With the patent war between Apple and Samsung raging in courtrooms around the world, it can sometimes be hard to tell who’s winning and who’s losing. Apple wins a battle here, Samsung wins a battle there, but nobody ever appears to be actually ahead. Recently, though, a British judge handed Samsung a major victory, but with a little bit of a stinger attached.

    According to a report this morning from Bloomberg, U.K. High Court judge Colin Birss ruled that Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 doesn’t infringe on the design patents Apple claims it does because consumers aren’t likely to mistake the Galaxy Tab for the much cooler iPad. Samsung’s Galaxy Tabs, he said “do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design. … They are not as cool.”

    So, while Judge Birss definitely handed Samsung a victory, he did so in a very backhanded way. And, frankly, in a way that reflects the realities of the tablet market. The Galaxy Tab has done decently well for itself, as Android tablets go, but it has posed no more real threat to the iPad than any other tablet, despite looking suspiciously similar. For the moment, the tablet market is Apple’s to rule. Every other tablet maker is stuck vying for a distant second place (a position the Galaxy Tab does not occupy). Judge Birss appears to know that, and to understand that consumers aren’t likely to mistake anything for Apple’s iPad.

    Meanwhile, Samsung also scored another minor victory – or, at least, a temporary reprieve – in the U.S. when Judge Lucy Koh agreed to stay the injunction against Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus. All in all, things look to be going well for Samsung at the moment.

  • iPad Mini To Be Made In Brazil, Launch In September?

    Rumors about Apple’s iPad Mini have been coming fast and furious lately. Last week we told you about rumors that the iPad Mini was preparing to go into mass production and was targeted for an autumn launch. Now it looks like those rumors have received some corroboration.

    According to a recent report from MacOkatara (Google Translation), Apple’s latest gadget is in fact heading for mass production. What’s more, it will be built by Foxconn at their factory in Brazil. The facility already produces iPhones and some models of iPad. The report also claims that the iPad Mini will launch in September, rather than October as usually suggested.

    Of course, this is all still rumor. Though several generally reliable sources have reported that Apple has an iPad Mini in the works over the last few months, the more specific details have tended to have a somewhat more dubious pedigree. In other words, it’s looking like an iPad Mini is coming, and probably sometime this year, but don’t start throwing money into the betting pool on anything more specific just yet.

  • Apple Announces iPad In Business Seminar Series

    To say that the iPad has captured the consumer tablet market would not quite be accurate. The fact is that the iPad effectively created the consumer tablet market. As such, it has developed a reputation as a primarily consumer device – a tablet for watching video and reading books and browsing the web. For some in the business world, that reputation is enough to keep them from buying iPads as productivity tools. Nevertheless, the adoption rate of the iPad among business people is increasing.

    In recent months, Apple has taken steps to increase the iPad’s business appeal by promoting its usefulness to those in the business world. To that end, they’ve just announced a series of live online seminars designed to help iPad users in the business world get the most out of their tablets. Here’s the description from Apple’s website.

    iPad is changing the way companies across the globe use mobile devices for work. See how many of these companies are developing and deploying mission-critical apps to help improve productivity and give employees secure and immediate access to information anywhere. There will also be a Q&A segment where viewer questions will be answered by Apple Business Experts.

    The seminars are on July 26 and August 1. Both are about half an hour long, and registration is free. They include an interactive Q&A session, as well.

  • Apple Does Devs A Favor, Removes Negative Reviews After Crash Bug

    Earlier this morning we told you that Apple had fixed the bug in the App Store that caused several recently-updated apps to crash on launch. The problem apparently originated with an Apple server responsible for adding DRM code to apps. The code that was getting added was corrupt, causing the apps to crash on launch – in fact, if you tapped the icon for an affected app, it would crash before the home screen had completely disappeared.

    As you might expect, users were not at all happy about the problems. What’s more, many – probably most – didn’t realize that the problem was Apple’s fault and not the developers. And so, of course, these users did what users do when they’re upset about something: they left nasty reviews. Several of the affected apps received numerous negative reviews before Apple got their fix in place.

    Fortunately, Apple recognizes the amount of harm a whole bunch of negative reviews in a short time can cause, especially to an app that’s struggling to gain popularity in the App Store. With that in mind, Apple extended the affected apps a peace offering. They removed all of the negative reviews left during the period the bug was in effect. In some cases, they even appeared to have removed all reviews, not just the negative ones.

    With the bug fixed and most users having installed the new, corrected versions of the apps, removing the negative reviews is pretty much the last step toward fixing the problem. Kudos to Apple for making the situation right.

  • Russian Malware Sneaks Into App Store, Google Play

    While critics often complain about the “walled garden” ecosystem of the iOS platform and its App Store, there’s one thing that’s hard to deny: iOS is about as secure as you could want it to be. While malware on the Android platform is an ever-increasing threat, iOS users generally don’t have to worry much about it. After all, all iOS apps are checked by Apple’s own reviewers, so a malware app could never make it to the App Store to be downloaded by users.

    Well, almost never.

    It seems a Russian malware app made it to the iOS App Store and Google Play recently. The app is called Find and Call. Once you download and open it it uploads your address book to a server, then spams all your contacts with texts prompting them to go download the app.

    Both Apple and Google have, not surprisingly, pulled the app from their respective markets. It is no longer available for download from either the App Store or from Google Play. The app was originally identified by Kapersky Lab, who discovered what the app did and notified both Google and Apple of the problem.

    Of course, it should go without saying that if you downloaded the app, you should go ahead and delete that as soon as possible. Without opening it.

  • Apple Resolves App Store Update Problem

    Apple Resolves App Store Update Problem

    Apple has fixed a bug that was causing certain updates to crash on launch. Yesterday we told you that many users were experiencing a bug that caused recently updated apps to crash on launch. The update affected over three dozen apps, including Instapaper, the free version of Angry Birds Space HD, GoodReader, Readdle Scanner Pro, and many more.

    According to a statement released to AllThingsD, Apple says they have now fixed the problem. According to the statement, the problem stemmed from a server that generated the DRM code for the affected apps. Instead of unlocking the apps for their users, the faulty DRM code caused the apps to crash.

    The problem was first brought to light by Instapaper developer Marco Arment, who posted to his blog that he had received a “deluge” of message complaining that the recent update to Instagram crashed on launch. A little digging revealed that the problem was on the App Store side, and that somehow Apple was releasing apps that had been corrupted.

    According to Apple, the situation has been resolved. If you had one of the affected apps, you’ll have to delete it and re-download it from the App Store in order to get it to work.

  • iPad3.com Domain Surrendered To Apple

    iPad3.com Domain Surrendered To Apple

    Earlier this week we brought you news that Apple was taking steps to seize the iPad3.com domain name. The site was owned by a cybersquatting company called Global Access and was home to a generic collection of ads and links to Apple-related products. Apple filed a request with the World Intellectual Property Organization to have control of the domain name given to them.

    Apparently, though, Global Access didn’t feel up to arguing its case before (it’s lost similar cases to MasterCard, AOL, and others in the past). According to Fusible, ownership of the site was transferred to Apple’s lawyers sometime in the last 24-48 hours. The WhoIs data for the site now shows that it belongs to Kilpatrick Townsend, a law firm that has represented Apple in the past.

    This is the second time in recent memory that Apple has gone after a domain name related to a product that doesn’t actually exist. Back in May they took similar steps to seize iPhone5.com Although the current generation iPad was widely expected to be called the iPad 3 (or iPad HD), Apple actually called it “the new iPad.” Similarly, last year’s iPhone should have been the iPhone 5, but was called the iPhone 4S. This year’s iPhone, still often called the iPhone 5, will almost certainly be patterned after the new iPad and simply called “the new iPhone.”

    What Apple plans to do with the domain isn’t clear. It’s currently empty, as is the iPhone5.com domain seized in May. Odds are good they’ll simply leave it blank, though they have the option of redirecting it to their official iPad page.

  • GameDock Could Turn Your iPhone Into a Console

    It’s clear that traditional gaming on a smartphone is frustrating. Games that need more than a tap or a swipe have to overlay controls onto the touchscreen, meaning that gamers will have their fingers hovering over much of the game. The newly released Max Payne for iPhone is a good example of this.

    Solutions to this problem are beginning to roll out in the form of Bluetooth controllers, some of which have holders for a iPhone or iPod. However gamers might as well get an older handheld gaming system for all the cost and poor design of most of them. Thankfully, elegant solutions, such as the Ringbow, are beginning to solve this seemingly intractable problem.

    Chris Jorgensen and Andi Greisel decided to come at the problem of touchscreen gaming from a different direction. Jorgensen states that the iPhone is too slick for some games and that the iPad is too large for on-screen controls. To solve this problem, he and Greisel have created the GameDock, a dock for iOS devices that turns them into home consoles. The GameDock can be connected to a TV, and will allow gamers to play iPhone games on their TV using up to two USB controllers.

    The pair have started a Kickstarter campaign to raise the money to manufacture the GameDock. They claim to already have all of the technical issues worked out, and are promising to ship early-bird GameDocks to people who pledge $100 or more. Those who pledge $150 or more will get a “retro” USB controller that looks exactly like a controller for the original Nintendo Entertainment System.

    Watch the video below to see Jorgensen and Greisel pitch the GameDock and describe where their inspiration for the device came from:

    The one thing that is not made clear in the Kickstarter pitch is whether the GameDock will allow users to play any game they have on their iPhone. Will players be able to use usb controllers to play Max Payne for iPhone, for example? While it is stated that the GameDock is compatible with existing iCade games, a broader functionality could help set it apart from other touchscreen gaming solutions.

  • App Store Bug Causes Newly Updated Apps To Crash

    Sometimes in life, the littlest things can be the most exciting. When you’re young and living on your own for the first time, you get a little thrill out of checking your mail and seeing stuff addressed to you, even if it’s junk. When you got your first email address (all the way back in 1997 for me; get off my lawn), getting email was great. Nowadays, checking the App Store on your iPhone and discovering you’ve got updates is nearly always fun (especially when it means new levels for Angry Birds).

    Except when it isn’t. Numerous reports have been coming in since yesterday that certain recently-updated apps have been crashing on launch. The earliest report came from Instapaper developer Marco Arment. According to a post on his blog, he was “deluged” with support messages following Apple’s approval of an update to his app. It seems the app would crash immediately after launch. Users tried deleting and reinstalling the app clean, and the same thing happened. Arment began investigating and found that his own archived copy worked just fine. He ultimately concluded that the App Store’s copy of the app had gotten corrupted somehow, and that the corrupted copy of the app was causing the crash. Within a couple hours Apple put up a functional version of the app and the problem was resolved. For users who installed the bad app, though, the only solution is to delete and reinstall it.

    Arment is clearly annoyed about the situation in the post. He encourages developers with non-critical updates ready to go to wait a few days:

    Because if this happens to you, all of your most active users, the people who will install updates within hours of them becoming available, will be stopped in their tracks. They’ll think you’re careless, incompetent, and sloppy for issuing a release that doesn’t work. And they’ll leave you a lot of angry 1-star reviews.

    Because it seems that Instapaper isn’t the only app affected by this problem. The App Store has apparently been releasing corrupted copies of dozens of apps. Arment has compiled a list based on user reports:

  • GoodReader
  • Readdle Scanner Pro
  • SmartScan+OCR
  • Angry Birds Space HD Free
  • Lords & Knights
  • The Early Edition 2
  • Gaia GPS
  • Meetup
  • Pair
  • Redshift
  • Flick Soccer
  • iBike Moto
  • Please Stay Calm
  • Pinball Maniacs
  • Lucky Slots
  • Stack the States
  • Gluddle
  • Qwak
  • Bunker Buster
  • MemoryBrands
  • Threadnote
  • Checkout Helper
  • Metronome+
  • Cocktailpedia
  • Phoster
  • Melodies Pro
  • MoPho
  • TEDiSUB
  • FlattrCast
  • iCoyote Europe
  • @View
  • Huffington
  • Tap’N Ride
  • Dosecast
  • Stat E&M Coder
  • SMARTReporter (Mac)
  • PDX Bus
  • CommBank Kaching
  • CincyMobile

    • That’s 39 apps in all. While Instapaper is working now, it’s not clear whether Apple has gotten the others fixed. If you have any of the apps on the list and have downloaded the most recent updates, you should check to make sure it’s working on your phone. If they’re not working, try deleting and reinstalling. Apple may have gotten them fixed, in which case you should get a functioning app. If you have any of the apps and they work, you might want to wait a few days before downloading any updates, otherwise you risk getting the corrupted version and having to delete and re-install the app.

  • Apple App Store Reviewers Look At Penises All Day

    By most accounts, Apple’s App Store is pretty awesome. Introduced in 2008 with the iPhone 3G, the App Store allowed third party developers the chance to put their software in the hands of iPhone users. It spawned the famous “there’s an app for that” campaign, and made mobile software development a huge industry.

    Of course, it hasn’t all been sunshine and roses. Apple has caught some serious flack over the App Store over the years, much of it from developers complaining that Apple was too secretive about what made an app acceptable. Though improvements have been made in recent years, the App Store approval process has often seemed arbitrary and confusing. The tendency has often been to assume that Apple has people at some office in India or somewhere similar, attributing the apparent lack of common sense in some App Store rejections (and approvals; anybody remember the Shaken Baby app?) to cultural or linguistic barriers.

    It turns out, though, that that’s not the case at all. In fact, Apple’s app review team is a handful of people in an office in Cupertino who look through app submissions all day. According to Mike Lee, former Apple engineer, Apple is extremely picky about who it lets on the team. He told Business Insider that the team is drastically understaffed. The reviewers have to wade through an enormous number of submissions. That, he said, is why the occasional bad app slips through, or the occasional good app is rejected without any apparent reason.

    He also said that these poor folks are forced to spend far more time looking at pictures of male genitalia than anybody ought to. According to Lee, the review team spends significant amounts of time “sitting there looking at things that may or may not be dicks all day long.” Lee went on to describe the problem in vivid terms. Which is to say that he was apparently going for some sort of record for using the word “dicks” the most time in a single paragraph:

    It’s a very serious problem, trying to filter out things that no one is there to see. Somebody has to sit there and filter out all those dicks. You can’t let all those dicks get through. You have to err way on the side of safety. You have to have people sitting there looking at things that may or may not be dicks all day long. Apple refuses to farm stuff out to massive groups of people. They insist on having actual smart, educated, well-trained people doing the job. So that means they have to have some of their actual employees sifting through a pile of dicks. The only way to deal with it is to set the bar so far away from dicks so that even a picture of a cucumber gets blocked by accident. Because if you don’t, you have people spending hours and hours of conversation on whether something is a pubic hair. It’s a huge waste of time.

    So, there you have it. The next time you find yourself getting frustrated with the App Store review process, it may help to take a few minutes and remember that the reviewer responsible for rejecting your app may just have been tired at the end of a long work day spent wading through pictures of other guys’ junk.

  • iPad Mini: Apple’s Suppliers Ramping Up Production?

    Yesterday we told you about a Bloomberg report claiming that Apple was planning to launch a 7-8-inch iPad before the end of the year. As with many other rumors, the report – which cited “two people with knowledge of [Apple’s] plans” – suggested an October launch for the device.

    Now new information has surfaced that appears to corroborate those rumors. According to the Wall Street Journal, Apple’s supply chain is gearing up to begin producing the iPad Mini, as it’s usually called, in September. Citing “[o]fficials at the component suppliers,” the WSJ says that Apple is telling the companies in their supply chain to get ready to mass produce the device. They also corroborated reports from a few months ago that LG Display and AU Optronics were producing screens for the new iPad.

    With an iPad Mini Apple would be taking aim at a market they have so far left untouched. Shortly after the original iPad released, Steve Jobs famously said that the iPad’s 9.7-inch screen was the lower limit for a satisfying tablet experience. The thriving low-end tablet market, which is populated with devices like the Kindle Fire and, later this month, the Nexus 7, would appear to prove him wrong. Currently tablets like the Kindle Fire are the closest thing to real competition Apple has in the tablet market, of which it controls a significant majority. Yet they do so well precisely because they, in a sense, don’t compete directly with the iPad: they’re smaller and priced significantly lower. A 7-inch, $250 iPad Mini could prove to be a major game-changer in the low-end tablet market.

    While rumors of an iPad Mini have been around almost as long as the iPad itself, they’ve been picking up in intensity in recent months. Indeed, more and more it’s looking like Apple really does have a smaller tablet in the works, and that they really will be releasing it later this year. Whether they release it in October, however, remains to be seen. On the one hand, that would allow them to take advantage of the holiday shopping season, which could net them a significant chunk of the 7-inch tablet market very quickly. On the other hand, it would compete directly with the new iPhone, which will also be releasing around September or October.

    At any rate, at this point it looks like the question to ask about the iPad Mini is no longer “if,” but “when.” And, of course “How much and where do I get in line for one?”

  • iPad Sales To Pass Notebook Sales Within Four Years

    When Apple announced the new iPad back in March, he spent a lot of time talking about the “post PC” world, a world in which tablets replaced PCs – particularly notebooks – for many users’ day-to-day needs, including web browsing, content consumption, and productivity. The iPad, he claimed, is the “poster child” for the post PC era. According to recent data released by NPD Display Search, he was right.

    According to NPD’s Quarterly Mobile PC Shipment and Forecast Report, tablets – most notably the iPad – will account for an ever-increasing percentage of mobile computing sales over the next few years. By 2016, tablet sales are expected to surpass notebook sales for the first time, with the margin between the two increasing again in 2017.

    Tablets Pass PCs In 2016

    According to NPD’s data, 208 million notebooks will be sold in 2012, compared to 121 million tablets (most of them iPads). By 2017, they expect notebook sales to clime to 393 million, whereas tablets will grow to 416 million. A key factor in the growth of tablet sales, they say, are mature markets like the North America, Japan, and Western Europe, where notebook penetration is high but tablet penetration is significantly lower.

    NPD also predicted that the line between tablets and notebooks will become fuzzier over the next few years. In a trend that has already begun with some of the most recent models (including the MacBook Air), notebooks are trending sharply toward thinner, lighter form factors, SSD drives, and other features that increase portability and ease of use. Meanwhile tablets – which already pretty much have the portability and ease of use thing down – are trending toward the use of more powerful hardware and gaining more robust productivity capabilities.

  • Apple Shrinks iPad to Compete with Smaller Tablets

    In what some are saying is a direct response to seven-inch tablets from both Google and Amazon, Apple could release smaller, more affordable versions of the iPad by the end of the year. According to Bloomberg, two individuals close to the plan also revealed that the company’s decision to shrink the device was an effort to maintain dominance in the market.

    So how small are we talking? If reports are to be believed, the new model will come equipped with a screen that’s seven inches to eight inches diagonally, though it won’t feature high definition. Presently, the device is thought to be announced this October, which would suggest that it may show up on shelves in time for the holidays.

    Google’s Nexus 7 and Amazon’s Kindle fire are currently priced at $199, both of which feature seven-inch screens. Comparatively, the new iPad is $499 starting out, while the iPad 2 will set you back $399 for the cheapest model. For consumers who aren’t devoted to Apple and are simply interested in owning a tablet, the cheaper option is certainly going to be more appealing. Since Apple wants to continue to dominate the market, their decision to go smaller makes perfect sense.

    I’m a perfect example of why Apple has reason to be nervous. Since I’m currently unwilling to shell out nearly $500 for a tablet, the options that are starting to pop up are much more appealing. Although I’m not saying that the Kindle Fire is comparable to the iPad in terms of functionality, a $199 investment sounds a lot better than dropping quite a bit more for bells and whistles you may not fully utilize.

    As of this writing, apple has yet to comment on the rumors.

  • iCloud Web Portal Getting Notes, Reminders, Find My iPhone Upgrades

    You may recall that back in May Apple briefly put up a new beta version of the iCloud website. This beta version hinted at some of the features that would be coming to iCloud with the launch of iOS 6 later this year, including web apps for Notes and Reminders. The iCloud beta page appeared to have been made live by mistake, though, as it disappeared rather quickly.

    Now, though, the new iCloud beta site is back, complete with clues about what Apple’s planning to do next with iCloud. If you navigate to the website, beta.icloud.com, you’ll see a page very similar to the one that was up back in May, just with some shuffled icons (see the lead image above).

    Unfortunately, you have to have a developer account to sign into the beta version of the iCloud web portal. I, alas, do not have a developer account. Fortunately, though, the good folks over at iJailbreak do, and they were able to get in and play with some of the new features. This is what the control panel for iCloud Beta looks like when you sign in:

    iCloud Beta Control Panel

    As you can see, there are quite a few features that aren’t there in the public version, most notably Notes and Reminders. For comparison, here’s the control panel for the public version of iCloud:

    iCloud Control Panel

    You may also have noticed in the beta version that the Calendar and Find My iPhone icons have beta tags on them as well. Apparently Apple is working on some updates for those, including a battery percentage indicator in Find My iPhone.

    There’s no hint as to when these new iCloud features will be rolling out to the rest of us. Mountain Lion is right around the corner, so the likeliest answer is that these updates will go public when it releases, though it’s possible they’ll be out sooner (or later).

  • iPad Mini, Refreshed iPad Coming In October?

    What are the odds that Apple would release another new iPad, the much-rumored iPad Mini, and the new iPhone all in the same month? Pretty good, according to Pacific Crest analyst Andy Hargreaves. In a recent note to investors, Hargreaves predicted that Apple will launch a 7.85-inch iPad Mini and a thinner, lighter update to the new iPad, and kill the $399 iPad 2 at the same time.

    The when the new iPad was introduced in March, the iPad 2 got a significant drop in price to $399. While the cheaper iPad has proven extremely popular, there is speculation that its popularity may come at the expense of the new iPad. If so, then killing off the cheaper iPad 2 makes a great deal of sense for Apple financially.

    The other parts of Hargreaves’s predictions, though, are a bit tougher to swallow. Specifically, the part about the new iPad getting a refresh is unlikely in the extreme. Apple has held very closely to a 12-month product cycle for iOS devices, and that cycle has worked extremely well for them. Apple isn’t likely to launch in October a better version of the tablet they launched in March. That’s not a money making strategy, it’s a piss-off-the-customers strategy. Any rumor about Apple re-launching a product before it’s 12-month cycle is over goes straight into the “I’ll eat my hat” file.

    As for the iPad Mini, most of the rumors we’ve heard so far do put it in October – assuming it ever launches at all. The only problem with that is the new iPhone. If the iPhone were still on its June/July schedule (which means it would’ve been launched at WWDC three weeks ago), then an October launch for the iPad Mini would make perfect sense – it’s far enough away from the iPhone that many of the people who want both can get both, and it’s excellently positioned for the holiday shopping season.

    The problem, though, is that the iPhone is now on an autumn release schedule, thanks to the delay of last year’s iPhone 4S (though Apple hasn’t officially confirmed this, they did announce a fall release of iOS 6, which will certainly be launching alongside the new iPhone). At Hargreaves’s $299 price point – which fits well with the rumors we’ve heard so far – the iPad Mini and the new iPhone will be direct competitors. Many people will want both, and for most it will be an either-or purchase decision, not a both-and. In other words, an iPad Mini and the new iPhone would cannibalize each others’ sales if they launch at the same time. A lot of people who would get the new iPhone will decide to hold off for another year and get the iPad Mini instead, while those who need a new iPhone will forego the iPad Mini.

    While rumors about the iPad Mini seem particularly strong lately, it’s important to remember that they’re just that: rumors. Rumors of a smaller iPad have been around since the launch of the original iPad. While it’s probably true that Apple has the iPad Mini in their labs, it’s by no means certain that they’ll ever release it. And if they do release it, it doesn’t make much sense that they’ll do so in such a way as to interfere with their flagship product.

    You can read Hargreaves’s note in PDF form here.

  • Apple Going After iPad3.com Domain Name

    Apple Going After iPad3.com Domain Name

    Apple is continuing its habit of seizing websites bearing product names Apple itself doesn’t intend to use, according to recent reports. A few weeks ago we told you that they had taken steps to seize iPhone5.com, a site that hosted a small message board devoted to discussions of the new iPhone. Despite the fact that Apple likely has no intention of calling the next iPhone “iPhone 5,” they filed a petition with the World Intellectual Property Organization to seize it. The request was granted fairly quickly.

    Now they’re doing the same with another website. Before it launched back in March, the current generation iPad was widely expected to be named the iPad 3. That, of course, didn’t happen, to the surprise and consternation of many a tech journalist. Nevertheless, according to Domain Name Wire, Apple has filed a complaint with WIPO to have control of the domain handed over to them.

    The domain is currently owned by an apparent cybersquatter called Global Access. Global Access, based in the Isle of Man, has lost similar disputes with other companies in the past.

    The interesting question, of course, is whether Apple will continue going after domains for product names they don’t intend to use. After all, the new iPad likely marked the end of numbered iOS devices, so presumably they shouldn’t feel the need to own, say, iPhone15.com or iPad37.com (it seems that everything up through iPad25.com has already been registered). Meanwhile, though Apple does own iPod.com, iPhone.com, iTunes.com, and many others, they don’t actually own iPad.com. Curiously enough, they don’t appear to have any intention of going after that site at the moment.

  • Apple Settles Proview Suit For $60 Million

    Apple Settles Proview Suit For $60 Million

    Apple has reportedly agreed to pay $60 million to Chinese company Proview for the rights to use the “iPad” name in China. The settlement is significantly larger than the $16 million offer Apple had been rumored to make.

    Proview has been battling Apple in court over the use of the iPad name for quite some time. Apple bought perpetual rights to the name in 2009 via a shell company. After the iPad released, Proview sued for trademark infringement, claiming they had not realized they were selling the rights to Apple, and that the deal had not been properly authorized within Proview, rendering it invalid. After some early victories in Chinese courts, Proview attempted to bring its case to America, but it was tossed out of U.S. District Court.

    Apple, meanwhile, accused Proview of trying to make Apple pay for the same thing twice. They claimed they had bought the rights fairly, and that Proview was just trying to squeeze extra money out of them. Proview, as it turns out, is significantly in debt. Though Apple offered a $16 million settlement back in May, Proview rejected it, demanding $400 million instead. That, incidentally, is the amount of money Proview needed to appease its creditors.

    It’s not clear yet when the deal between the two companies will be final. According to Reuters the deal was submitted to the Chinese provisional court that’s hearing the case yesterday. Once the deal is officially in place, though, you can bet that it won’t take Apple any time at all to start bombarding the world’s largest tech market with iPads.

  • Google Offers Offline Editing and Drive for iOS

    Back in April Google introduced Drive, a safe place for us to save, share, and create all kinds of thing. Today, at the Google I/O conference they introduced a couple things we’ve all been waiting for.

    The first thing is Drive for iOS. Now there’s a Drive app. for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. So Apple fans can finally take advantage of the service.

    The next great thing is offline editing of Google docs. That’s right, you can work on stuff offline. When you finally get reconnected later, everything will automatically update and be saved. Apparently they are also working on getting the offline editing available for spreadsheets and presentations at some point in the future future.

    The catch with the offline editing is you need the most recent version of Chrome, so you’ll need to check that out too. In case you didn’t know, the drive app for Android has already been available for a couple weeks. It’s with getting.

    Here’s what Google said on their Doc’s Blog:

    With the Drive app, you can open PDFs, photos, videos, documents and anything else stored in your Drive while you’re on the go. You can also search all your files, add collaborators to documents, and make files available offline to view them even without an internet connection. For blind and low-vision users, the app also works great in VoiceOver mode. Learn more about what you can do with the app in our Help Center.

    Get Drive in the App Store for your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch running iOS 5.0+ and visit the Play Store to get the latest on your Android phone or tablet.

    So, there’s a couple of new features you can try out, and it’s great news if you’re an Apple fan, because you can finally take advantage of Drive. They didn’t mention when offline editing would be available for some of Google’s other products, but hopefully it will be arriving in the coming months.

  • Google I/O: Google Announces Chrome For iPhone, iPad

    Google has just announced that they are bringing their Google Chrome browser to Apple’s iOS devices. The app will be available for iPhone and iPad, and is expected to hit the App Store later today.

    Chrome for iOS brings many of the most popular features for Chrome’s desktop and Android versions to Apple’s iOS platform. Chrome includes the omnibox, which allows you to conduct web searches or enter URLs in the same box.

    While Chrome for iPad makes excellent use of the tablet’s screen real estate, the iPhone has to be a bit more conservative. Chrome for iPhone’s tabbed browsing experience mimics the pages format of Safari for iPhone. With Chrome, though, switching between tabs is a bit simpler. All you have to do is swipe from side to side to switch from one tab to the next.

    Chrome for iOS also includes incognito mode. A button in Chrome for iOS’s menu bar allows you to toggle back and forth between Incognito Mode and normal browsing.

    Perhaps most importantly, Chrome for iOS syncs across all your devices. That includes both your tabs and your login credentials. That means that you can start reading a news article or looking a restaurant’s menu on your computer – be it a Mac, PC, Chromebook, Android device, or all of the above – and pick it back up on your iPhone or iPad. You can select any open tab on any device running Chrome.

    Chrome for iOS, along with Google Drive for iOS, should be available in the iOS App Store later today. It’s likely to be a universal app, and should be free to download