Today is June 24, 2011. Believe it or not, it has already been one year since the iPhone 4 went on sale across the US, UK, France, Germany and Japan to literally millions of people who eagerly waited in line to get their hands on the latest and greatest iPhone yet. The history of the iPhone 4 has been remarkable, controversial and fascinating, filled with prototype leaks, criminal investigations, amazing technology, scandals, mystical white unicorns, new carrier allegiances and more. Come along with me as we mark the one-year anniversary of the iPhone 4 with a walk down memory lane.
Posts tagged with "iPhone"
iPhone 4: A Retrospective, One Year Since It Launched
Kickstarter: The InfiniteLoop iPad Stand
Designer / Engineer Tim Gushue lives in San Francisco and works in the consumer electronics field. Tim designs products that make sense, questioning what is truly necessary in a product to help solve a problem in a simple and elegant way. He also sounds like an Apple fan, and a minimalist, so many of us can relate to this project called InfiniteLoop.
The InfiniteLoop is a “simple solution to making the iPad truly useful.” It helps improve the iPad’s versatility when reading in bed, watching a movie, sitting in a plane, or doing FaceTime on the go. It was born out of the frustration with not being able to find an iPad stand that could accommodate all uses.
The InfiniteLoop is a maluable 4 foot loop that you can manipulate to virtually any shape to hold up almost any tablet. It’s made up of a patented co-molded metal and plastic band. Since it can be bent into any shape, you can get almost any angle you need, all with this “loop.” It also comes with suction caps and adjustable side slips to allow it to fit any iPad or tablet on the market. When you’re not using the InfiniteLoop, it rolls up into a coil and can fit in your pocket, purse, backpack, anywhere you can think of.
Video after the break. Read more
OmniFocus for iPhone Gets Forecast View, Lots Of Fixes
Users of the OmniFocus application for iPad who also happen to have an iPhone and are tied to The Omni Group’s software ecosystem might want to check for updates in iTunes and download the latest version of OmniFocus for iPhone. Released a few minutes ago, OmniFocus 1.10 adds one major new feature: Forecast mode for overdue, due, and future actions. Forecast was one of the new OmniFocus features exclusive to the iPad version, and a hint of things to come in the much-anticipated OmniFocus 2.0 for Mac. Just like on the iPad, you’ll have a bar along the top displaying a summary of your upcoming week, as well as past tasks and stuff that needs to be taken care of sometime in the future. Forecast mode replaces the Due and Overdue lists and it provides an incredibly useful way to see what’s going on at a glance, without having to find your way around sections and taps. It’s a huge time saver.
OmniFocus 1.10 also comes with several refinements all around the UI and bug fixes, which you can read in detail here. Just to name a few, the first-run sync process has been redesigned to be more intuitive, and the Action and Project editors got “Go to Project” and “Go to Context” buttons. Overall, the app feels a lot faster and it’s clear The Omni Group set out to fix all those minor annoyances that are not so minor when you have to work with an app on a daily basis.
You can find OmniFocus for iPhone at $19.99 on the App Store.
Review: #NowPlaying with NowPlayer
There are many iPhone audio player apps available, yet only a few really stand out. My Artists, which we have reviewed in the past, is one of our favorites and is very feature filled. Notes on artists, links to videos, and lyrics are just some some of the extended features. However, most of the time I don’t need these features and if I’m on AT&T’s stellar EDGE network, many of these features take too long to load on my iPhone.
I jumped on a new beta some time ago from @misecia for an app called NowPlayer. Without ever using it, but only seeing mock-ups on Dribbble, I was very interested. The interface is sexy and every pixel has been placed perfectly. Now, I know that usability is important too, and this app doesn’t fall short in that category either. NowPlayer is largely based on gestures for controlling the audio within the app: you can control your music with swiping or tapping with your finger on screen. These gesture controls are perfect for when you’re exercising or typing up a review and don’t want to look over at your iPhone’s display. The gesture system is totally customizable too: two-finger tap is used to play/pause, but it can be changed to a double tap if you desire; you can then perform a three finger tap to auto-send a tweet, swipe left/right to change tracks, swipe up/down to change the volume, and double tap with two fingers to change shuffle mode. There are a few Easter eggs for extra options, some still haven’t been found! Don’t worry, as there are onscreen controls, too, and they are minimal and look great as well. Read more
In The UK, 65% Of Connected Apps Run On iOS
Various smartphone OS market share data typically covers the US market, but a report out today by the industry body GSMA has investigated the UK market. The organisation collaborated with comScore to create a ‘connected apps’ index, measuring the usage of apps that had data access. It used that data to calculate what smartphone OS was used most frequently on an operator’s network. At 65% of the smartphone market, iOS takes the lions-share share of the market whilst Android came in second, accounting for 31%. But the rest of the smartphone operating systems, including BlackBerry, Windows, Palm and Symbian took just 3% of the survey.
You see iPhone is hugely over-indexing in terms of connected app usage, Android is doing pretty well, but Symbian – 23.6% of active smartphones but a mere 1% of connected app users
Painting a virtual picture of the UK market using these statistics shows developers that there are a potential of 5.7 million iPhone owners, 2.7 million Android owners but only 119,000 Symbian users. With that snapshot of the UK market it paints a rather depressing picture for those who are developing for anything other than iOS or Android.
[Via The Guardian]
Court Denies Samsung Request To See iPhone 5 and iPad 3, Lodsys Asks For Extension To Reply To Apple’s Motion
You may recall that in the current legal battle between Apple and Samsung, Samsung had demanded Apple hand over the iPhone 5 and iPad 3 (or the newest prototypes). Samsung claimed, when it demanded these products, that it was equal to Apple’s claim to getting early access to Samsung products (although they had been previously revealed and put on pre-order). Apple amended its complaint with Samsung last Thursday and after reviewing that, Judge Lucy Koh yesterday made her decision regarding Samsung’s request for early access to the iPhone 5 and iPad 3 and denied it.
As FOSS Patents explains, the reasoning Judge Koh effectively gave was that “Apple’s request for expedited discovery was far more justified and far less prejudicial”. Going into more depth on this, Apple had required early access to Samsung products because it needed to evaluate whether or not to include them in their complaint. In addition, Samsung’s products were already circulating and details were known about them, unlike the iPhone 5 and iPad 3 which have not been revealed in any manner.
The judge made a lot of effort in her 11-page order to explain that Samsung is entitled to “parity” but its motion was overreaching in this case.
However, it wasn’t all good news for Apple, with the Judge potentially suggesting that Apple’s request for a preliminary injunction on certain Samsung products may be delayed or denied.
Instead, it may be necessary for the court to evaluate such a motion against the background of the iPhone 5 (as far as any Samsung phones are concerned) and the iPad 3 (as far as any Samsung tablet computers are concerned), whenever Apple is in a position to present those products.
In other (related) news, Lodsys has asked for a two-month extension to respond to Apple’s motion to intervene. They had been required to respond by next Monday (June 27) by they’re asking the court for a two-month extension until August 27 to respond. Although it will effectively delay proceedings, Lodsys claims that it is “not for purposes of delay” and furthermore states that they have conferred with Apple’s counsels – who apparently do not oppose the extension.
The request does have to be approved by the court, but the court can choose a length less than requested, say just one month instead of two. Despite this, Lodsys is continuing to issue patent infringements to various developers, with a large number of Android developers receiving notices yesterday.
#MacStoriesDeals - Tuesday
Here are today’s @MacStoriesDeals on iOS, Mac, and Mac App Store apps that are on sale for a limited time, so get them before they end!
Report: Apple Demands Suppliers To Reduce Costs For iPhone And iPad Components
According to reports in today’s Economic Daily News, Apple has demanded cuts in supplier’s quotes for various components that are vital to the production of the iPhone and iPad. The paper has reported that Apple is putting significant pressure on the suppliers of PCBs, optical components, battery modules and touch panels to cut costs by 10% in the second quarter of 2011.
Apple is using the increased business it brings to the suppliers as a bargaining chip to get a 10% cut in costs. In particular the growing popularity of the iPad has meant that analysts are expecting a 70% growth in the second quarter, a significant windfall for Apple’s suppliers.
With a new iPhone expected sometime later this year and continued growth because of the iPad, Apple is expected to continue to demand cuts both in this quarter and on an ongoing basis.
[Via DigiTimes]
Link Your Computer And iOS Device With myPhoneDesktop: Double Pass Giveaway!
We’ve talked about myPhoneDesktop before on MacStories but we thought it deserved a short ‘re-review’ to accompany today’s giveaway. Keeping it simple, the premise of myPhoneDesktop is that it provides a portal through which you can easily transfer data and information from your desktop computer to your iPhone or iPad.
Broadly speaking the app transfers four types of data including phone data (both numbers and text messages), website URLs, text and images. When you send any of that data from your computer, and there is both a desktop and web client, it will be pushed straight to your device with a notification.
But where I think the app becomes most powerful is when you have the data on your iPhone or iPad. In the corner of the app it has the “Open in” icon where it literally has a wealth of options for your data. There is everything from the obligatory search with Google, to send by email, add to contact, send SMS or launching another app with that data. Importantly, the developers aren’t resting on their laurels, since we last talked about myPhoneDesktop there have been a few updates that continue to add more app integrations including Navigon and InstaTodo.
In reality I have only just scraped the surface of what this app can do, for example it also integrates with Google Voice and Skype, so make sure to check out the myPhoneDesktop website to learn more and get your own copy. Today we’re giving away 5 ‘double passes’ of myPhone desktop – in other words the five winners will receive two promo codes, perfect to give one copy to a iPhone-toting friend or family member, or (god forbid) use it as a belated Father’s Day gift. Details of the give away are past the break.