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What’s The Next Step For Social Magazines?→

What’s The Next Step For Social Magazines?

Former Design Director of The New York Times Khoi Vinh shares his thoughts on apps like Flipboard and TweetMag for iPad, digital magazines that plug into your Twitter, Facebook and Google Reader accounts to fetch articles to display in a beautiful magazine-like view. As Vinh points out – and as we argued in the past as well – the next step for these apps isn’t optimizing performances or improving the design. It’s all about making the apps “smarter” and capable of playing an important role in your social graph:

I was thinking about this the other day. What if Flipboard was capable of looking at my Twitter stream and automatically find out the topics that I really care about? And after that, what about filtering articles belonging to those topics and visualize the most relevant ones in a top position? With the acquisition of the Ellerdale Project last year, it seems like the Flipboard developers want to bring further integration with the social graph into the app.

The process, however, includes a difficult goal: making sure the algorithm is intelligent enough to understand whether a user wants to read about content he’s interested in, or discover new articles and material thanks to the app and his friends using the same application. It’s a complex system, but someone will get there eventually. The iPad is only one year old.

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Long-time Subscriber? The NYT Gives You 1 Year of Free Web, iPhone and iPad Access→

Long-time Subscriber? The NYT Gives Out 1 Year of Free Web, iPhone and iPad Access

Jim Dalrymple at The Loop reports the New York Times is refining its paywall introduction by gifting one year of full free digital access (web, iPhone and iPad) to “long-time subscribers”. Apparently the NYT started sending out emails to some subscribers earlier today inviting them to join the promotion, and the one who got in touch with by The Loop has been a subscriber for 12 years.

The customer I spoke with has been a subscriber for 12 years and received the email this afternoon. He said he took The Times up on the offer and accepted the one-year free.

In the email The Times says “as a frequent reader of NYTimes.com, you’ve demonstrated an uncommon interest in a wide variety of today’s most important topics.” The email and subscription is being sponsored by Lincoln.

The New York Times’ paywall is set to go live for everyone on March 28th.

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Apple Sues Amazon→

Apple Sues Amazon

According to a brief note posted by Bloomberg, Apple is suing Amazon over the use of the “App Store” name. The popular online retail is indeed about to launch its own “Amazon Appstore” for Android devices, a marketplace to distribute and download apps. Yes, pretty much like Apple’s App Store – which counts more than 400,000 apps for iPhones and iPads and generated more than 10 billion downloads since its launch in Summer 2008.

Apple, in a complaint filed March 18, accused Amazon.com of trademark infringement and unfair competition and asks for a court order to prevent the company from using the “App Store” name as well as for unspecified damages.

Recently, Apple had a similar dispute with Microsoft. Clearly the folks at Cupertino aren’t happy with everyone using the term “app store” these days, and they’re now taking action against Amazon.

Update from Bloomberg with Apple’s statements:

Amazon has unlawfully used the App Store mark to solicit software developers throughout the United States.

We’ve asked Amazon not to copy the App Store name because it will confuse and mislead customers,” said Kristin Huguet, a spokeswoman for Apple.

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The Most Expensive iPad 2 In The World→

The Most Expensive iPad 2 In The World

If you’ve always wanted to spend £5,000,000.00 to buy the most expensive (and exclusive) iPad 2 in the world, look no further than Stuart Hughes’ latest creation: a 3G iPad 2 encrusted with diamonds, gems, gold, a 75 million year old Ammolite rock and a 65 million year old dinosaur bone. Seriously.

This iPad 2 is a mix of non-sense and luxury made for those willing to throw their money away.

Undoubtably the world’s most unique gadget is the Ipad 2 Gold History Edition. Encrusted with 12.5 cts of ‘I’F’ Flawless diamonds, a magnificent total of 53 individually set sparkling gems dwell beautifully in solid 24ct Apple logo with rear section formed again in 24ct gold weighing an immense 2,000 grams. The unrivalled imagination towards the craftmanship of the iapd is down to its main front frame which is made from the oldest rock the world has to offer in the form of Ammolite , sourced from Canada this stone is over 75 million years old. However to make this masterpiece even more individual, sections of a 65 million year old T-REX Dinosaur’s thigh bone was splintered and then shaved into the Ammolite , then finished off with ultimate jewel , as single cut 8.5ct flawless diamond inlaid in its own platinum surround with 12 outer flawless diamonds. A magnificent combination of top of the industry technology and unique thought were involved in creating this piece of History.

I’m disappointed, however: Hughes didn’t made a diamond-encrusted Smart Cover. I was thinking to buy this iPad, but the lack of Smart Cover: Dinosaur Edition is forcing me to reconsider my purchase. I guess I’ll just go with a new Ferrari, the new one with an iPad-enabled dashboard.

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Rob Waugh reports on the rise to near-mythical status of Jonathan Ive, the remarkable man from Chingford→

Rob Waugh reports on the rise to near-mythical status of Jonathan Ive, the remarkable man from Chingford

Collectively, the designers obsess over each product, stripping away non-essential parts, reworking tiny details such as LED indicators on the sides of laptops and phones. Ive once spent months working solely on the stand for Apple’s desktop iMac; he was searching for the sort of organic perfection found in sunflower stalks.

There are many quotes you could pull from Rob Waugh’s fascinating background story on Jonathan Ive, but I’d like to think this one in particular is the most revealing. Nothing in Ive’s design is an afterthought, and it’s this pursuit of perfection beyond design that the competition simply lacks. If you choose to think about it, the most magnificent thing about Apple is that consumers get to put their hands on a product whose every inch receives an unremarkable amount of attention; you can affordably purchase what a true master had once carved and precision-engineered by hand. What Ive creates in my mind is no longer a computer, but a masterpiece. Just read the few opening paragraphs, and you’ll get a sense of what I mean.

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Panic Raises $56,224 For Charity In 24-Hours→

Panic Raises $56,224 For Charity In 24-Hours

The results: together, in 24 hours, we raised $56,224.00 (¥4562015) for Japan. We’re amazed. Thank you so much. It’s donation time!

Yesterday, Panic began a charitable drive where 100% of the proceeds from all software purchased within a 24-hour period would be donated to the Japanese Red Cross Society and Portland’s Mercy Corps. On Twitter, Panic just announced that they raised $56,224 (¥4562015) towards the relief effort in Japan. What the Mac community can pull off in a relatively short period of time is simply amazing, and even more money is being raised in concurrent software charities.

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AT&T Slashes Price Of Original iPad 3G by $100→

AT&T Slashes Price Of Original iPad 3G by $100

The press release isn’t available yet in AT&T’s news room, but Jim Dalrymple at The Loop reports:

AT&T on Friday slashed the price of the original iPad 3G by $100 throughout its U.S. retail stores.

The iPad 3G now costs $429, $529 and $629 for the 16GB, 32GB and 64GB models, respectively.

The change is only for AT&T retail stores for now as the Apple online store still reports the old (already slashed) prices for the iPad 1. This sounds like a clever move for AT&T to get rid of stock now that the iPad 2 is available, and very hard to find this week. Perhaps some users will settle with an original iPad 3G at the lower price point.

Earlier this week, we reported several original iPad owners on AT&T experienced issues when trying to migrate their data plan to the iPad 2.

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iPad: The Microwave Oven of Computing→

iPad: The Microwave Oven of Computing

Matthew Guay nails it in his story at Techinch: the iPad is the microwave oven of this computing era, a new device for everyone that might seem useless at first, but creates a new category for consumers.

The microwave isn’t easier for every cooking task, and perhaps it takes longer to prepare a complicated meal in a microwave. Perhaps no award winning meal will be created in one, unless it’s a special contest for microwave cooking. But it simplified simple cooking, and consumers around the world saw it as a necessary piece of equipment within in years of it becoming popular.

Decades later, the same concept works for computers and the iPad:

The world has discovered that the iPad doesn’t have to be a full computer to be successful. It’s a new form factor that makes computing more accessible to more people than ever. Sure, you might not create a new app on it, and there’s still not Photoshop on iOS. You can’t bake a medium-rare roast in a microwave, either. But now instead of waiting for your computer to boot, you can read the news, type a short document, and get on with your day all in the time your aging desktop takes to boot.

Maybe you won’t be able to manage your WordPress blog entirely from the iPad, not even in 2012, and perhaps you’d like to turn yourself to the Xbox 360 if you want motion-based games. But for anything else, you’re just as good with an iPad as millions of people were with a microwave oven when it first came out. And by the way, I also happen to get lots of things done on my iPad.

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Angry Birds HD Updated: 15 New Levels→

Angry Birds HD Updated: 15 New Levels

Just in time for the release of the iPad 2, Rovio updated (again) Angry Birds HD last night to include 15 new levels and continue “the adventures in the frontier badlands”. A new golden egg has been included in version 1.5.3 as well.

Looking at early iTunes reviews, it sounds like Rovio also changed something in the “pause” screen of the app, putting a news section (some people say ads) in there and forcing users to wait for the animation to finish before resuming the game. If you’ve noticed this too, please let us know in the comments below.

Angry Birds HD is available here.

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