Posts tagged with "iPhone"

Shine Is A Beautiful Weather App for iPhone

If you’ve found yourself struggling to find the perfect weather app that looks great and it’s packed with functionalities at the same time, you might want to take a look at Shine, the latest entry in the weather software panorama that, at $0.99 in the App Store, provides a neat way to check on your current location’s weather, forecasts, temperature and wind speed. Shine wants to keep things simple, and for someone like me who’s no weather expert at all, the promise of offering readable weather data in a beautiful and intuitive design sounds like a major selling point, especially considering the price of one buck.

The app’s main screen lets you see your location’s weather conditions at a glance. Current weather is displayed above in a large calendar-like view with temperature, icon and wind speed, whilst a today / tonight / tomorrow forecast is embedded below with the same stats. You can assign multiple locations in the settings, and re-fetch your location by tapping on the crosshair icon in the top right. Switching between locations is as easy as sliding your finger on the location bar on top. Another feature of Shine is the extended forecast view you get by pulling up the screen with a verticals swipe; the only problem is, the app seems to be US-centric in the way it gets weather information – it relies on SimpleGeo and the National Weather service, and I wasn’t able to get forecasts or correct wind speeds in Italy. Perhaps the developers should implement Yahoo Weather data or something else to make sure Shine works across countries outside the United States.

As it stands now, Shine is a simple, beautiful weather experiment that I’m sure works perfectly in the US, but lacks the necessary data to be a hit internationally. Perhaps the developers will fix this in a future update (I sure hope so), so if you live in the US and have $0.99 to spend, give it a try. Otherwise, wait for an update.

Lodsys Responds to iOS Developers Over Patent Infringement Notices

Last Friday there was news that a number of independent developers for the iPhone and iPad had received legal warnings that they were violating patents that Lodsys owned. Suffice to say it sparked an outcry from developers, users and commentators; few had anything nice to say of Lodsys. Well today they have responded to a number of criticisms on their website in a series of Q&A posts. The key patent in question was that of Dan Abelow who sold his portfolio of patents to Lodsys back in 2004.

Its first response was in regards to the fairly frequented notion that Lodsys is a “parasite, troll, should die etc.”, they respond to this in saying that they are just like any other company who sells a product or service – they try to “get value for the assets it owns”. They write in the post “threats and irrationality don’t help.  In particular, the death threats are seriously uncool.”

As for the question of the patents being “too broad”, Lodsys notes how easy it is too look back in hindsight, saying “of course this is how everyone is going to do it”. In response to patent licensing being unethical and similar questions, they say that it seeks an economic return to sell their patent assets, completely legal and furthermore citing the notion that patent licensing encourages future invention.

As for why they directly contacted developers and not Apple, they say it is because Apple (as well as Microsoft and Google) has already licensed the patents in question. They claim that they cannot provide the third party developers with the rights to the patent, and Apple hasn’t approached Lodsys for the purpose of attaining an eco-system-wide license for the patents. They say their goal is not to prevent developers from using the technology, rather that it is to popularize it and charge a relatively small license for it.

They claim in multiple areas that they specialise in efficiently selling rights to patents, they say that by having a consistent price model it also means independent developers aren’t unfairly disadvantaged.

As for how much developers will need to pay, Lodsys clarifies that the in-app purchasing mechanism for example would cost a developer 0.575% of their US revenue over the period the technology was implemented until the patent expires. It gives an example of an app that earns US$1 million in one year would pay US$5,750.

[Via TheNextWeb]

You can read all of Lodsys’ responses on their blog.

Search Ninja Gives Your iPhone A Better Web Search

If you’re familiar with Swearch, a neat iPhone web app that allows you to search for a specific query on multiple websites at once, then you’re most definitely going to be interested in Search Ninja, a $0.99 app that allows you to flick through search engines, star search results, and start typing in seconds to find exactly what you’re looking for. Search Ninja’s concept is simple, but the execution is powerful in the way it meets a user’s expectations when it comes to mobile search. Upon opening the app, you’re immediately greeted with a Google search field, and the iOS keyboard ready to type. No need to tap on buttons to start searching, no need to do anything before performing a regular Google Search. If you, however, want to customize the search experience and have those extra seconds to make sure you’re navigating to the right webpages, Search Ninja features an intuitive swipe interface to switch between search engines in seconds. Both on the main screen and in the embedded web view, you can swipe to change from Google to Bing, Twitter, Wikipedia, IMDB, Youtube, Flickr and many, many more. You can even add other engines if you really feel like your favorite one is missing, although the process requires a 2-step wizard screen.

Two features I particularly appreciate about Search Ninja are favorite searches and the History section. They’re very straightforward, but come in handy if you find yourself looking for the same things on your iPhone over and over, or simply want to look up an old subject again.

Search Ninja strikes me for its simplicity and clean design. Gestures to switch engines are a plus, and a very useful one. Get the app here at $0.99.

iOS 4.3.3 Users Reporting WiFi Issues on iPhones, iPads

According to reports surfaced on Apple Support Communities, many users are experiencing WiFi connectivity issues on devices running the latest iOS 4.3.3. These issues are nothing new to iOS – you might remember the problems with the original iPad and WiFi routers last year – but this time it appears they’re affecting iPhone and iPod touch models as well. The story is very similar to last year’s reports: a device fails to connect to a network or is unable to navigate; the WiFi icon doesn’t appear in the statusbar even if the device is actually connected; the device randomly disconnects from a network. You can read more about what users are reporting here, or here.

Personally, I did notice my iPhone 4 keeps disconnecting from my home network (running on an AirPort Extreme station) a few times every day. It’s kind of annoying as the disconnection lasts between 30 seconds and 1 minute, but like I said it’s not happening more than 3 or 4 times a day – surely not “all the time.” On my iPad 2, WiFi signal is stable (doesn’t drop) but it’s lower than before even a few meters away from my router. Again, these are issues I wasn’t experiencing on iOS 4.3.1 or 4.3.2 and definitely seem to fall in line with Apple Support Communities’ discussion threads.

Most of the times, though, there’s no need to panic. If iOS really has a WiFi bug, you can stay assured Apple will fix it soon with a software update – if the reports will get stronger in the next weeks, Apple will issue a new version of iOS like they did before. Several users, however, forget that having a proper network configuration helps a lot when having to deal with multiple mobile devices; if the issue is not in the network, resetting your iOS settings to factory usually helps in resolving all WiFi connectivity problems. If the issue persists (like on my iPhone), then it’s certainly something Apple will have to take a look at. [via ReadWriteWeb]

IM+ 5 Updates to 5.0 With Neighbors Location Service

ShapeService’s popular instant messaging app for iOS, IM+, has updated to version 5.0 today bringing a neighbors location service for chatting with friends and persons in your vicinity. IM+’s new Neighbor enables persons to find friends and chat with people whom have similar interests nearby. It isn’t too dissimilar from something like Google Buzz, with the exception that your location can be tightly controlled by exact, approximate, or city based positioning accuracy. While I see a service such as this being useful for natural disasters or emergencies, Neighbors is advertised as a way to initiate conversations, make new friends, and find people of interest using the IM+ service in your local city. Merchants looking for an alternative to Craigslist may find great use in Neighbors, updating their status to include products being sold while giving them the opportunity to talk with customers in real time. Friends and neighbors are displayed on a map with their respective avatar, giving users an overview of those that are nearby.

Version 5.0 also includes the ability to delete your account history, fixes numerous bugs, and includes some visual tweaks to the service icons. IM+ has long been known as the instant messaging client that does it all on the iPad and iPhone, and is available for free on the App Store or you can pick up the Pro version for $9.99 as a universal app.

NYT Labs Create Tool To Donate Your iPhone Location Data

Apple may have fixed the iPhone’s location tracking issues with the recent iOS 4.3.3 update, but The New York Times’ Research and Development Lab thinks this location data is still valuable in the way it provides users and researchers an historical archive of devices’ cellular triangulation points and WiFi hotspot databases. The NYT Labs, the same folks behind innovative iPad news reader News.me, have developed and released a web application called OpenPaths that allows iPhone users to register and anonymously share their location database. The web tool, available here, is touted as a way to “securely store, explore, and donate your iOS location data”, Nick Bilton at The New York Times Bits blog reports. While it’s unclear how the web app works with the latest iOS software update (which stops iOS devices from backing up the location database to a computer, but still keeps an unencrypted copy stored on device), OpenPaths apparently finds a way to obtain this location data and reorganize it in a beautiful interface that also enables you to navigate maps, set specific times of a day, and browse by date.

People who participate in the project are asked to upload location information from their phone, which is then made anonymous and added to a database with the data from every other upload. People can then browse their own location data on an interactive map. At a later date researchers will be able request access to the collection of location uploads.

As for privacy concerns in regards to OpenPaths, the website’s homepage explains how the system works:

Our upload system is completely anonymous. We store your location data separately from your user profile. It is only with your express permission, combined with a unique passcode that only you know and that openpaths does not store, that we release your data to whom you approve. You will always have control over how much of your information is shared.

The main focus of OpenPaths is that of enabling you to donate your data to researchers around the world working on problems like “disaster preparedness, traffic flow, urban planning, and disease transmission.” You can choose to grant researchers access to portions of your data, or skip the process entirely and keep everything for yourself for personal purposes. It’ll be interesting to see whether this NYT Labs project will gain traction in the next weeks, and if future iOS updates will break its functionality with further location database encryption. In the meantime, you can sign up for OpenPaths here.