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Posts tagged with "iPhone"

Zephyr Jailbreak Tweak Enables Cohesive iPhone Multitasking Gestures

The iPad brought four (or five) finger gestures for multitasking in iOS 5, but due to the screen size, the iPhone didn’t receive the same gestures. Today however, Grant Paul (known more commonly as chpwn) has released a jailbreak tweak that brings gestures to the iPhone for those same multitasking functions.

The tweak, named Zephyr, is available on the Cydia store and is currently made up of two key gestures. The first is based on Max Rudberg’s concept video from earlier this month, and is essentially a single finger swipe up from the bottom of the screen (ie. the Notification Center gesture but from the bottom of the screen, moving up) and it reveals the multitasking tray. The second gesture is swiping in from the sides of the iPhone screen, allowing you to go back to your last opened app and then back again.

Emulating the gesture functions of the iPad and iOS 5, this Zephyr tweak looks and works really well and it’s clear that Paul took the time and effort to perfect how it works. It’s available for jailbroken devices for $2.99 on the Cydia store. Unlike some other, similar tweaks, Zephyr does not require Activator or other jailbreak tweaks to work.

Paul says he is looking to update the tweak with more gestures and actions in the future, including perhaps a gesture to exit to the home screen (as is possible with the iPad on iOS 5). You can view a demonstration of the tweak below the break.

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Microsoft Continues iOS App Rollout with OneNote for iPad and SkyDrive for iPhone

Microsoft has been rolling out quite a few apps lately, now introducing Microsoft OneNote for the iPad and SkyDrive for the iPhone (and Windows Phone). It looks like Microsoft really is bringing Microsoft Office to the iPad with these notable releases, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. OneNote is a mobile companion for the desktop app (not an addition to), and SkyDrive is Dropbox-esque in its execution. Handy to have with you? You bet. Alternative replacements for the real things? Probably not so much.

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Tapbots Release First Ever #TweetbotSale

Tapbots, creators of awesome iPhone apps such as Calcbot, Weightbot, Pastebot, and Convertbot have decided to promote their fantastic twitter client by having a limited time sale of Tweetbot. Normally $2.99, Tweetbot has a sale price of just $.99. This #TweetbotSale comes after the official Twitter client for the iPhone was updated yesterday. Version 4.0 of Twitter has received much discussion on the internet in the last 24 hours. Cody did an excellent review yesterday that everyone should read regardless of your thoughts about version 4.0 of the official client.

Tapbots is hoping to gain even more users after many may be shopping for a new iPhone client. We at MacStories think that Tweetbot is one of the best Twitter clients available for the iPhone and if you haven’t had the chance to pick up the app, you get it now on the App Store for $.99.

Square-Enix’s Highly Popular Chrono Trigger Now Available for iPhone

Square-Enix has released one of its most popular titles for iPhone today - Chrono Trigger. The heavily popular classic 16-bit jRPG from the Super Nintendo days adds the Dimensional Vortex and Lost Sanctum areas from the Nintendo DS remake for its iPhone release.

So how popular is Square-Enix’s Chrono Trigger? Well, IGN named it the #2 SNES game of all time, behind A Link to the Past. The iPhone port features touch-controlled menus, eight language options and “optimized” graphics for the iPhone. Read more

Evernote Introduces Two New iPhone Apps To Help Remember People & Meals

Today, Evernote has introduced two new iPhone apps that tie into the Evernote service but are designed for a specific purpose. Evernote Hello is an app that is all about remembering people, whilst Evernote Food is designed to preserve the “experiences, thoughts and memories” that might be attatched to a meal.

Evernote Hello is designed to help users remember people they meet by asking for a picture, a time of when they met and a context for the meet. The app is constructed so that users can simply hand over their phones (if they are comfortable with that) so that the person they are meeting can easily enter their name, contact details and take a quick picture of themselves. An interesting addition to the app is the ‘Encounters’ feature, this allows you to add details of the meetings - from location, photos and any notes.

All of your Evernote Hello entries are synchronized with Evernote so that you can view them from any device or computer. This means that you can search for people inside of Evernote. When you’re trying to find a particular note that you created during a meeting with someone, you can search for them and then look for notes created around the same time. More context!

Evernote Food isn’t just about taking photos of your meals, it’s about remembering restaurants, remembering meals with friends and family and remembering that great meal you made yourself. You’ll be able to store photos, photo captions, venues, notes and tags about any meals and then share them with Twitter, Facebook or email.

The Evernote Hello approach is focused on visuals and narrative. For example, if you’re trying to remember the name of someone you met at a big company meeting, tap on the face of anyone else you met at the same time. That will show you the encounter along with all the other people that you met together. By exploring these shared experiences, you’re able to find the people you want and strengthen your own memory.

Evernote Food and Evernote Hello are both available for free on the App Store.

Flipboard For iPhone Now Available, Includes New Cover Stories Feature

Flipboard 1.7 has just gone live in the App Store and it brings support for the iPhone and iPod touch. The iPhone version has been long anticipated and it has launched with a new feature called Cover Stories, which at the moment is exclusive to the iPhone and iPod touch. Cover Stories is a feature that curates a selection of articles and images being shared with you - it will even become ‘smarter’ over time. Whilst it isn’t yet available for the iPad version, the Flipboard team say that they are working on bringing the feature to the iPad.

With Flipboard for iPhone we’re introducing Cover Stories — one place to quickly catch up on some of the most interesting news, updates and photos being shared with you right now. The more you interact with your friends and the stories being shared, the smarter Cover Stories gets. You can refine what appears here by adding content to your Flipboard, muting anyone you’d rather not hear from, and connecting to your social networks. Cover Stories will be coming to your iPad in the near future.

The Los Angeles Times sat down with Flipboard CEO, Mike McCue about the new release. He revealed that the Flipboard team, now nearly 50 people, has spent most of the year developing the iPhone version - making sure it wasn’t just a shrunken version of the iPad app.

Building on Flipboard’s deep links to Twitter, Facebook and other social networks, McCue wants to harness the huge amount of data being generated by users of these major services to build a kind of social media nerve center – a digital brain that listens to all your social networks and picks the most important and interesting stories, and presents them to you in a simple and organized way.

The Flipboard team has also a made a short advert for the new iPhone version of Flipboard - we’ve included it and the version 1.7 release notes of Flipboard below the break. We’ll have some more thorough thoughts on the new iPhone version of Flipboard in the next few days - so stay tuned for that. You can download the universal Flipboard app for free on the App Store.

[Flipboard Blog via The Verge]

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Global BBC iPlayer App Coming To The iPhone & iPod Touch This Thursday

Update: The iPhone version of the BBC iPlayer (Global) app is now available for free on the App Store - it comes as a universal app that runs on both the iPad and iPhone.

The global version of BBC iPlayer first began rolling out internationally five months ago and is now available in sixteen countries around the world. So far the video-on-demand service, offering BBC content to an international audience, has only been available on the iPad. That will change this Thursday when the BBC iPlayer app will become available for the iPhone and iPod touch.

The announcement was made by Jana Bennett, President of Worldwide Networks and Global BBC iPlayer who noted that “moving to iPhone and iPod Touch allows us to take the service to a significant new potential audience and deliver fantastic programme content from the BBC and the UK’s creative industry”.

This platform extension shows how Global iPlayer isn’t just about moving TV to tablet devices, it’s also about a mobile strategy – about truly getting TV everywhere in a way that it hasn’t been before.

Bennett also announced that programs from DRG will also begin to appear on the BBC iPlayer service in early 2012. DRG is a program distributor that owns programs such as Peep Show, Father Ted, Black Books and Shameless.

[Via The Next Web]

Apple Denied A Preliminary Injunction Against Samsung Galaxy Products In The US

There have been a lot of twists and turns in the Apple and Samsung legal battle and the latest milestone saw a US judge deny Apple’s request for a preliminary injunction to stop sales of some Galaxy devices in the US. What this means is that Samsung can continue to sell all their Galaxy devices in the US for the time being. Interestingly, Judge Lucy Koh noted that Apple will likely succeed in proving that Samsung’s Galaxy products infringe Apple’s patents, but she didn’t grant the injunction because it wasn’t demonstrated that it would cause irreparable harm to Apple if the Galaxy products stayed on sale.

The Verge got a statement from Samsung on the ruling:

Samsung welcomes today’s ruling denying Apple’s request for a preliminary injunction. This ruling confirms our long-held view that Apple’s arguments lack merit. In particular, the court has recognized that Samsung has raised substantial questions about the validity of certain Apple design patents. We are confident that we can demonstrate the distinctiveness of Samsung’s mobile devices when the case goes to trial next year. We will continue to assert our intellectual property rights and defend against Apple’s claims to ensure our continued ability to provide innovative mobile products to consumers.

It was also revealed yesterday that Apple had given some work-around options to Samsung for how they could side-step their iPhone and iPad design patents. Matt Macari from The Verge has an excellent article that covers the issue in great depth and clarity. In short, Apple had to make a list of alternative design choices to make the argument that Samsung did have other choices when designing their smartphones and tablets and they chose to emulate Apple instead. Some of the alternatives Apple made include:

  • Front surface that isn’t black
  • Display screens that aren’t centred on the front face and have substantial lateral borders.
  • No front bezel
  • Front surface that isn’t entirely flat
  • Cluttered appearance

[The Verge (1) (2)]

Tell Me Again How iPad Demand Is Waning→

Tell Me Again How iPad Demand Is Waning

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster surveyed a few Apple stores on Black Friday and found that iPad sales per hour were 68 percent higher than they were a year ago. On average, the stores Munster visited sold about 14.8 iPads per hour, up from 8.8 iPads per hour last year, more than enough to support the analyst’s projection of 13.5 million iPads sold in the December quarter.

If you’re still not convinced that Apple sales are stronger than ever based on Gene Munster’s findings, you only have to look as far as Chris Whitmore from Deutsche Bank whom checked in with over 200 stores on Black Friday. Of around the one hundred Apple Stores he got in touch with, 75% of the stores were sold out of the iPhone 4S by the end of Black Friday. In AT&T and Verizon stores? 50% sold out (Sprint apparently had adequate stock).

According to AppleInsider:

Whitmore also found strong iPad and Mac sales in his own surveys, and in particular noted that consumers showed strong support for Apple’s thin-and-light MacBook Air. He said the entry-level 11.6-inch MacBook Air, aided by a 10 percent discount on Black Friday, was the most popular option in the MacBook Air lineup lineup.

The 11.6-inch MacBook Air, on sale for $898 on Black Friday, is a comfortable size and a great all-around laptop. If you were in the market for a new laptop, the $101 discount on MacBooks was nice to take advantage of. Similarly, iPads starting at $458 (a $41 discount) pushed many of the right buttons for savvy shoppers.

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