Posts tagged with "iPhone"

AppShopper 1.4: Top 200, App Ratings, Reviews, and more

Last week, Arnold Kim gave twitter a little preview of some new features and functionality of AppShopper 1.4 for iOS. The new update was just approved by Apple and now has features like Top 200 and App ratings. Other new features include:

  • Links to 3rd party app reviews like 148apps and TouchArcade
  • Automatically load apps when scrolling to the bottom of a list
  • New filters for search
  • Email notification settings
  • Disable push notifications during certain times of the day (Yeah!)
  • In-app AppShopper account registration
  • Share an app’s info via Twitter, Facebook, email and more
  • Various bug fixes

Screenshots for iPhone and iPad after the break.

Read more

Inside Google+ Mobile Web App

Two days ago Google launched Google+, the company’s latest effort to get into the social networking space and build a platform to share content and connect people. For those who missed the coverage (you can find some detailed reports here and here), here’s the gist of Plus: it’s a social network connected to your Google account that looks a lot like Facebook but it’s got a cleaner design and a set of different “apps” tied together by the Plus brand. What does it mean for consumers? It means that whilst Circles, Huddle, Hangouts and Sparks could be seen as separate services and concepts, they’re in fact sections of the entire Google+ website. Yesterday, Google started allowing people to send invites to other users, which resulted in a massive explosion of invite requests on Twitter and thousands of new sign-ups. After a few hours, Google was forced to close invites due to “insane demand” and promise more coming in the next few weeks as the service scales to accomodate new users and more content.

Google+ has a strong mobile counterpart, too. As the service aims at empowering Google users to share and connect at any time from anywhere, Google built native apps for Android and iOS devices to let users enjoy the Google+ experience on the go, and upload media such as photos and videos shot with their phones. Furthermore, the mobile apps get access to Huddle, a group messaging feature built into Google+ that some are already eyeing as Google’s response to iMessage, only it works on both iOS and Android. However, the official iPhone app is not available yet, and Google says it’s “coming soon”. In the meantime though, users can try a mobile optimized web app, which relies on Google’s recent mobile UI changes to lay out a unified interface to access Google+ and switch between various Google services.

Last night, I signed up for Google+ and played around with the website. Today, I decided to take a look at the mobile web app which, surprisingly enough, might just be the nicest thing Google has ever done on iOS’ Mobile Safari. Read more

Jailbreak Tweak Could Let You Run Multiple iPhone Apps Side By Side On The iPad

In what can only be described as borderline ridiculous, but a very awesome tweak, Aaron Ash has managed to hack together a way in which two iPhone apps can run side by side on the iPad. In a blog post, Ash makes it clear that at this stage it is only really a proof of concept, not yet ready for a public release. In particular there are some bugs that are preventing audio from playing and accelerometer data from being detected by the apps.

The bottom right button turns on “edit mode” which allows you to rearrange applications, and rotate them (Angry Birds normally runs in landscape, here they’re turned). I’m debating on if I should go for the typical desktop feel or make it more SpringBoard-like and keep apps in preset locations.

Nonetheless he says he managed to “waste plenty of time already playing 2 games of Angry Birds at the same time” on the same screen. In fact he managed at one stage to play 3 at a time, which worked until he added a fourth, which crashed the tweak. He notes that “performance is actually pretty good, definitely useable” but with those bugs he says he probably wont release it for a few months. That said, he does note that he might show the tweak off at the jailbreak meetup in New York that is happening on Saturday, July 10th.

Samsung Lodges Complaint To The ITC, Asks For Import Ban On iPhone, iPad and iPod

Samsung yesterday filed a complaint to the International Trade Commission (ITC) asking for an import ban on a number of devices produced by Apple. The complaint asks for a ban on the following types of products, which translate into the iPhone, iPad and iPod:

Mobile Electronic Devices, Including Wireless Communication Devices, Portable Music and Data Processing Devices, and Tablet Computer

The actual complaint has been marked confidential at this stage, meaning actual details of what Samsung is alleging are not yet available. Nonetheless, this latest move by Samsung is likely another defensive measure they could use when bargaining with Apple. FOSS Patents explains that the ITC is quite likely to investigate Samsung’s complaint and would come to a decision in roughly 18 months.

This complaint from Samsung is the latest to come in the legal battle between Apple and Samsung that has seen complaints filed across the world and on a number of various issues. All of which has spawned from Apple’s initial decision to sue Samsung over the “Look and Feel” of their Galaxy line of devices - which Apple has since elaborated upon.

[Via FOSS Patents]

Apple Highlights Why Macs, iPads and iPhones Are For College

Apple has promoted the best features of the Mac, iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch for students in three new web pages on Apple.com. The three pages, found on the Student portal on Apple’s website all start with premise of “Why Mac for College” or “Why iPad for College” and proceed to list some of the features that will appeal to students such as the Mac’s compatibility with Windows and Office, or watching iTunes U videos on the iPad, or recording audio memos on the iPhone or iPod Touch. 

It’s interesting to note how Apple continues to put significant effort into marketing their products to students in College - despite their success in recent years in attracting more of the mainstream community. Whether it is the continued education discounts, Back to School promotions or this refresh of the student portal, Apple sure doesn’t want to let go of the student market.

If you want to have a look for yourself at how Apple is marketing their products to students, you can jump through to the student portal or go straight to the new pages for Mac, iPad and iPhone and iPod Touch.

[Via AppAdvice]

How To Child-Proof Your iPhone→

How To Child-Proof Your iPhone

Dave Caolo at 52 Tiger shares a series of interesting tips to “child-proof” an iPhone (though most of these features are enabled on the iPad as well) to make sure kids using a device won’t get access to functionalities like deleting apps and pulling the trigger on in-app purchases. Something I never had the chance to play with is the restriction settings panel for location and email:

Next, exercise (limited) control over location services and email accounts. First, tap Location to see the locations options screen. You can disable/enable location services on an app-by-app basis or turn it off entirely. Once you’ve set this up how you’d like it to be, select Don’t Allow Changes. Likewise, tapping email accounts and then Don’t Allow Changes won’t let you modify existing email, contacts or calendar information or create new ones. Of course, Jr. can still read your mail (and reply to it), so this isn’t entirely useful.

You can read more at 52 Tiger by hitting the source link below, and enable restrictions under Settings->General on your iOS device. Apple has been criticized in the past for not offering the right tools to parents to prevent children from spending money in iTunes, though with iOS 4.3 they introduced a broader set of restrictions and brought the in-app purchase window (when a device asks for your Apple ID password) from 15 minutes down to 5 minutes.

Permalink