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When you first pick up the iPhone 5, your hand immediately contours to the same grip it’s become accustomed to with your previous iPhone. This is no small achievement. Despite how much thinner, lighter, and taller the 5 is than any previous iPhone, it still feels unmistakably like an iPhone; simultaneously something brand new and, by this point, instinctually familiar. Read more
Passbook is one of the newest features of iOS: it’s brand new to iOS 6, and while many apps have yet to support it, there are a few that are working now. I have decided to take one of these apps for a spin to show you how Passbook really works.
The official Target app was updated yesterday to support Passbook, as announced by the company in a press release.
Now, many people know about Passbook, but when they first open it, the app simply redirects to a section on the App Store (when it’s working) without actually explaining how to fill this new digital wallet. Target has chosen to allow customers who receive Target Mobile Coupons to easily send, store, and access coupons in Passbook. Read more
If you missed our Mountain Lion coverage, be sure to check it out. Here are today’s @MacStoriesDeals on hardware, iOS, and Mac apps that are on sale for a limited time, so get them before they end!
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The jury sitting on the Apple and Samsung trial in California has largely found Samsung guilty of infringing on Apple’s intellectual property. The nine jurors unanimously came to agreement, largely finding in Apple’s favour and thus awarding Apple $1.049 billion in damages.
Apple was succesful on a number of claims it put to the jury, but not necessarily against all the phones and tablets that Apple claimed to infringe. One such claim that Apple was particularly succesful in claiming ingringement was the notorious ‘bounce-back’ patent in which the jury found every one of the accused devices infringed on - similarly with Apple’s scrolling and two finger gestures, the jury agreed that nearly all the devices did infringe the patent.
But Apple certainly wasn’t succesful on every front, and one notable area in which the jury did not agree with Apple was in regards to the claim that Samsung’s patents were invalid. In fact the jury didn’t find a single patent, on either side, was invalid.
When the verdict was read, there was minor mistake in the damages calculation that lead the jury to go back and reconsider the decision. It had arisen when Samsung pointed out that the jury had awarded damages for some devices that the jury had said didn’t infringe.
[via AllThingsD, The Verge]
Now that the jury’s verdict has been handed down, the next step will be a preliminary hearing on injunctions. Apple will have to file its requests by August 27th (this coming Monday), at which point Samsung will have two weeks to respond. The actual hearing will be held on September 20th.
[via The Verge]
Today’s verdict should not be viewed as a win for Apple, but as a loss for the American consumer. It will lead to fewer choices, less innovation, and potentially higher prices. It is unfortunate that patent law can be manipulated to give one company a monopoly over rectangles with rounded corners, or technology that is being improved every day by Samsung and other companies. Consumers have the right to choices, and they know what they are buying when they purchase Samsung products. This is not the final word in this case or in battles being waged in courts and tribunals around the world, some of which have already rejected many of Apple’s claims. Samsung will continue to innovate and offer choices for the consumer.
[via The Verge]
We are grateful to the jury for their service and for investing the time to listen to our story and we were thrilled to be able to finally tell it. The mountain of evidence presented during the trial showed that Samsung’s copying went far deeper than even we knew. The lawsuits between Apple and Samsung were about much more than patents or money. They were about values. At Apple, we value originality and innovation and pour our lives into making the best products on earth. We make these products to delight our customers, not for our competitors to flagrantly copy. We applaud the court for finding Samsung’s behavior willful and for sending a loud and clear message that stealing isn’t right.
[via AllThingsD]
Today was an important day for Apple and for innovators everywhere.
Many of you have been closely following the trial against Samsung in San Jose for the past few weeks. We chose legal action very reluctantly and only after repeatedly asking Samsung to stop copying our work. For us this lawsuit has always been about something much more important than patents or money. It’s about values. We value originality and innovation and pour our lives into making the best products on earth. And we do this to delight our customers, not for competitors to flagrantly copy.
We owe a debt of gratitude to the jury who invested their time in listening to our story. We were thrilled to finally have the opportunity to tell it. The mountain of evidence presented during the trial showed that Samsung’s copying went far deeper than we knew.
The jury has now spoken. We applaud them for finding Samsung’s behavior willful and for sending a loud and clear message that stealing isn’t right.
I am very proud of the work that each of you do.
Today, values have won and I hope the whole world listens.
Tim
[via 9to5 Mac]
Windows Phone is looking gooooood right now.
— Bill Cox (@billcox) August 24, 2012
Using Bing Local Scout on my Windows Phone to look for a place to drink a pint. Love that UI. Fresh. Unique. Different. That is all.
— Frank X. Shaw (@fxshaw) August 24, 2012
[via The Verge]
Last week, Shaun Inman (creator of the popular statistics and RSS server software Mint and Fever)’s newest game, Flip’s Escape, got approved by Apple. It ties in with the loose storyline of The Last Rocket after escaping from the collapsing factory. Flip, the rocket you play the game as, needs to flee from the shockwave which resulted from a large explosion. At the same time Flip has to avoid colliding with asteroids during his epic escape. Read more
Things by Cultured Code, a developer company based in Stuttgart, Germany, has been around since the day the App Store and iOS 2.0 were unveiled. The app is famous for its minimalist, iconic interface and features which are a perfect mix of simplicity and serious business from the very first version on. It’s the perfect example for the ethos of “If 1.0 sucks, all other versions will suck as well”, it was done right the day it came out.
Yet, the first Things just didn’t work for me — I don’t know why, but it didn’t stick. I’ve never tried out other solutions, neither complex workhorse that is OmniFocus, nor have I tried a basic to-do app like Remember The Milk. The last three years, I was a Simplenote guy. I’m really into minimalism; in fact, that’s the reason why I initially desperately wanted to try out Things. But Simplenote worked better than Things for me. You could paste anything into it and the new content would be immediately available across all your devices, and on the web. My notes were always with me. And after I found Notational Velocity for Mac, a Simplenote desktop client, I completely stopped searching for other solutions.
But now, Things have changed. After over a year of beta testing, Things 2 with Cloud sync has finally arrived, and besides its big syncing feature, it’s got a bunch of other cool refinements and new possibilities along the way. Read more
Since I started to write about UI design and iOS apps again 5 months ago, I became more and more disappointed with the native music player on my iPod touch. During my research, I found many innovative modifications of the iOS table view, and I often wished that Apple will integrate some of them into their system apps, especially their music player. But since Apple is a company that believes in radical minimalism and coherence throughout its ecosystem, this never happened and also won’t likely happen in the future. I tried out many alternatives like GoodMusic, but no app was able to satisfy both my design and usability needs on my iPod touch. Until yesterday. Yesterday, Pixiapps released Ecoute for iOS.
Ecoute for Mac has been the app Pixiapps focused on during the last years. It is a minimalist, easy to use iTunes replacement with iconic UI and many cool hotkey and playback features. I’m still an iTunes guy, because I need a reliable solution for managing my over-1100-record digital music collection. But Ecoute for Mac was the first app which really made me think about switching my desktop music player. And now, Ecoute debuts on the iPhone. Although the app is promoted as “Ecoute for iOS”, there is no iPad version available yet. For me this is not really a problem — I like the semi-skeuomorphic design of the iPad music player very much and was never seriously thinking about replacing it. But when I opened up Ecoute on my iPod for the first time, I immediately knew that this was exactly what I’ve been searching for. I basically want three things in a mobile music player: easy navigation, intelligent gesture integration for flawless in-app movement, and a focus on album artwork. Except for some flaws in terms of navigation, Ecoute measures up to all these requirements. Read more
Independence Day in the USA is tomorrow (July 4th) and there are many great deals rolling in! Here are today’s @MacStoriesDeals on hardware, iOS, and Mac apps that are on sale for a limited time, so get them before they end!
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It’s easy to look back at five years of iPhone and say that it was just about technology.
Five years ago, the original iPhone launched in the United States to much hype and a slightly different world. Apple was a much smaller company; Obama wasn’t President of the United States; R.E.M. were still together. The interface design behind the iPhone was, too, a little different than the bits we touch and swipe today. Both Ars Technica and Macworld have published solid retrospectives about the past five years.
The iPhone has created an economy that’s spurring the creation of jobs and new positions all over the globe. It reignited the mobile phone industry, and, in one fell swoop, turned competitors upside down as they struggled to keep their eyes open to the new wind blowing in their direction. The App Store didn’t launch until 2008, but its numbers are the very example of the software revolution spearheaded by the iPhone.
Unlike most inventions of modern history, though, the iPhone created a culture. And that’s because – unlike the ATM or the cordless telephone – the iPhone brought people together. By allowing developers to craft software for consumers willing to pay for it, the iPhone took down the wall between creation and consumption – the virtual barrier that normally separates an inventor from people using a product.
Both sides affected by this change – developers and users – ultimately became the starting point, the goal, and the focus.
The iPhone is about the people.
Like any other company looking for a profit, Apple has always needed to make money with the iPhone. But, after five years, I like to think that there can be a good cause behind profit and industry strategies – that there can be a purpose to “make great products”. And maybe I’m wrong, but I believe the iPhone has proved to be one of those major changes that have made people’s lives better. By combining breakthrough hardware design with the human touch, iPhone didn’t just change the way people communicate, work, and play: it saved lives, improved workplaces, told stories.
Sometimes there’s more to progress than just technology.
[image credit: Flickr]
