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Posts tagged with "lion"

iOS 5 Camera App: Lock screen Shortcut, Volume Shutter Button And Photo Editing


Improvements to the iOS Camera app are next up in the WWDC keynote, and chief to the improvements made to that app includes a lock screen shortcut to taking pictures and improved auto focus options.

A camera icon on the lockscreen will take you to the Camera app, ready to take a photo. If you have a passcode it will let you take photos but not view the photo album. What is even cooler is that pressing the volume up button now becomes a shutter button.

Within the Camera app, you can pinch to zoom and holding your finger on the screen will create an auto-focus and exposure lock around that area. Finally, you can now edit photos straight from the Camera app including the oft-used ‘Red-eye removal’ feature, crop photos and ‘Auto-Enhance’.

iOS 5: Safari Improvements

Apple has unveiled a number of improvements to the iOS version of Safari and in particular is proper tabbed browsing for Safari on the iPad. As can be seen above, you will now be able to switch tabs with just one touch.

Other new features include ‘Reader’ which will strip a website down to the bare basics of just the text and image, similar to Readability and Instapaper functions. You can then email that “streamlined” article to any friends or family.

The second is the ‘Reading List’ which allows you to save articles for reading at a later time. It works on the iPhone, iPad or Safari and you can access the Reading List from any of those versions of Safari.

Over 200 Million iOS Devices Sold, 25 Million iPads And $2.5 Billion Paid To Developers

Scott Forstall has just come on stage at WWDC and revealed that in just 14 months, Apple has sold over 25 million iPads. That has brought the total number of iOS devices (iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch) sold to over 200 million since the original iPhone launched in 2007. That brings iOS’s ‘Mobile Installed Base’ to 44% of the total market, with Android in second place at 28% of the market and RIM at 19% of the market.

Our customers couldn’t wait to get their hands on the iPad 2. In the first 14 months, we’ve sold 25 million iPads

Furthermore the iTunes store has now sold over 15 Billion songs, whilst the iBookstore (that launched last year) has seen over 130 million downloads. Apple now has 225 million accounts aggregated from the iTunes, iBooks and App Stores.

Moving to the ever-popular App Store, there have been over 90,000 apps built just for the iPad. This all contributed to what is now over 14 billion App downloads from the store - leading Apple to pay developers over $2.5 billion dollars since launching the App Store in 2008.

Lion Will Be Mac App Store-only, $29 - Coming In July

At the WWDC keynote, Phil Schiller has just announced that OS X Lion will be available only through the Mac App Store as a 4 GB download. The surprising news comes after rumors of Lion also set to be distributed on DVDs and portable USB keys – that is no longer the case.

With 3000 new APIs and 250 new features, Lion will be released in July at $29 in the Mac App Store. A new developer preview will be available later today.

Photos courtesy of This is my Next.

Mac App Store Adds In-App Purchases, Push Notification And Delta Updates

The apps in the Mac App Store are set to receive some solid enhancements including push notifications, sandboxing and delta updates.

For enhanced security, apps will have a built-in sandbox mode whilst developers will have the ability to send “delta updates”, which are effectively ‘patch based’ updates, meaning the entire app will not have to re-downloaded with every update.Apps will also be able to send push notifications to users and just like iOS apps, can also have in-app purchases.

Phil Schiller also touted that the Mac App Store has become the number one retailer for PC software, overtaking even Best Buy.

Lion: New Photo Booth Goes Full Screen and Does Face Tracking

At Apple’s ongoing demo of OS X Lion at the WWDC, the company has announced the new OS will come with 250 new features, highlighting 10 of the most important ones on stage. Among them, a new version of Photo Booth that goes fullscreen thanks to Lion’s new functionalities and is able of some basic face-tracking for a new “dizzy” effect that puts a nice bird animation around your head.

We expect a new Lion build to become available later today. Photos courtesy of This is my Next.

Macs Outgrowing The PC Industry


Starting the WWDC keynote is a discusion about Lion, and Phil Schiller has started out by throwing out some sales numbers surrounding the Mac platform. As of today there are 54 million active Mac users and Macs are defying the trend of the rest of the PC industry.

In terms of year-over-year numbers, Mac sales grew by 28% whilst the PC market actually shrank by 1%. Phil Schiller touted that the Mac is “outgrowing the PC industry”. Notebooks are the big success for Apple with 73% of all Mac sales coming from the MacBook range, whilst 27% are desktop Macs.

Rumor: Lion To Launch On June 14th

In last year’s ‘Back to the Mac’ event, Apple publicly revealed that the next version of OS X, Lion, was scheduled for a summer 2011 release, but didn’t specify an exact launch date. 9to5 Mac today claims to have information that suggests Lion will launch on Tuesday, June 14th, less than two weeks away. It comes after Lion was said to have gone “live for internal testing” less than two weeks ago, suggesting a public release in the near future.

They claim to have heard chatter from several sources, suggesting the June 14th date is a “strong possibility”. Furthermore they report that Apple retail stores will revamp their storefront window to publicise the launch of Lion.

Apple is said to be planning one of their product launch-indicative “visual updates” for the morning of Tuesday, June 14th

The report also suggests that the launch of Lion will mark the beginning of reduced software presence within Apple stores, starting with the possible removal of Snow Leopard. In line with this, another source claims that the retail supplies of Snow Leopard are dwindling, solidifying the possibility of a mid-June launch of Lion. Earlier this year the appearance of several Lion manuals on Amazon had suggested a late-July launch based on their launch dates.

[Via 9to5 Mac]

The MacStories Team: What We Want from WWDC 2011

WWDC 2011 starts in two days, and all of us have our own hopes to be crushed, wishes to be granted, and features to drool over once we finally see Lion, iOS 5, and iCloud in action. We’ve all got something we want most out of the upcoming announcements, whether it be iOS compatibility with AirDrop, or seamless iOS updates through iOS 5, and we’ve decided to publish our wants from Apple’s big three for your viewing pleasure. In return, we expect you guys to tell us in the comments what you want to see on Monday. In the meantime, we’ll get the ball rolling! Read more