Apple News

What’s missing from the iPad

January 28th, 2010 at 01:30am Under Hot Apple News

Filed under: Hardware, Multimedia, Cult of Mac

All in all, the iPad turned in a pretty exciting product debut. I don’t think Apple will have any trouble selling these things, and it can’t be a very good day in Amazon, Sony or Barnes and Noble’s executive suites.

While all the final info is not out yet, there were a few major omissions from the iPad hardware. Here’s the highly desireable stuff that came out missing :

• No camera, which means no video conferencing. No quick shots for blog posting. No videos.
• No Verizon. The AT&T pricing looks good, but is it really unlimited or is there a 5GB ceiling? Many users are pretty desperate to get away from AT&T, so it was surprising Apple went for another partnership with them.
• No notifications. Not a word was said about them. They might be in there, since the iPad clearly runs iPhone apps (and what iPhone app doesn’t notify you these days?) but nothing was demoed.
• Enhanced multitouch. As far as we can tell, it works the same as the iPhone — no dynamic tactile interface, no pressure sensitive screen, nothing special that we know about yet.
• No TV content. Of course there’s the iTunes deals, but Apple has apparently been scrambling around to make so DVR deals as well. So far, nothing.
• No multitasking. Perhaps the biggest disappointment: no streaming media apps while punching out a document in Pages. No MLB video running in a corner while you read your mail, or pulling up a PDF while chatting with a friend.

I think the iPad will be a superior device, and will sell like the proverbial hotcakes. Apple will certainly extend and enhance the iPad over time, but it would have been great to see some of these things in the initial release.

Anything else we missed that they missed?

TUAWWhat’s missing from the iPad originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 27 Jan 2010 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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By Mel Martin Continue Reading What’s missing from the iPadAdd comment

Get your current weather from Outside

December 22nd, 2009 at 04:00am Under Hot Apple News+ Iphone

Filed under: Software, Odds and ends, iPhone, App Review

Outside [iTunes link] is a new, personal weather app for the iPhone/iPod touch that provides a visual forecast with some paid options for push notifications. I like the idea of the app; it has some nice graphics and a fresh approach to weather information. The GUI is based on a metaphor of looking out a window: you can get the current conditions or a five-day forecast, if you want to glance into the future. For the relevant stats, like humidity, cloud cover and winds, you just flick up the screen, and it’ll tell you everything you need to know.

The app also features an interesting pay model: when you buy the U.S $2.99 app, you get 30 days of push notifications for free. Then it’s $0.99 for the notifications every three months. Notifications include letting you know if rain is in the forecast, the UV index when it goes above a set level, a warning if the temperature goes below your preference, and a notification that the weather is OK to wear a T-shirt.

There are a few things that would make this app better. First, it’d be nice to reduce the need to flick the screen so often. The five-day forecast could be placed on one page, not five. And the notifications are unique, but a bit strange. I’d much rather be notified of upcoming storm warnings rather than T-shirt weather, but there is no such option — especially since the notifications are so pricey (getting them for a year costs more than the app itself), it’d be nice to have some more options. And if you want weather from a different location, you have to enter that location manually. There is no list of favorites.

I think weather junkies would be better off with the Weather Channel app [iTunes link], which is free, Weather Channel Max for $3.99 [iTunes link], or MyWeather [iTunes link] mobile which provides very detailed info for a one-time $4.99, and includes (free) push notifications for severe weather. There is some clever thinking behind Outside, and it’s a fresh approach to a function that’s seen its share of rainy days. But I wish it had more information on the individual screens, and it wasn’t so expensive to get notifications.

TUAWGet your current weather from Outside originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 21 Dec 2009 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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By Mel Martin Continue Reading Get your current weather from OutsideAdd comment

App Review: Notifications for iPhone

December 5th, 2009 at 04:42pm Under Hot Apple News+ Iphone

Notifications App Review by msbaylor. For more App Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum Review Index!

Notifications [$2.99 - iTunes link] for iPhone does just what the name suggests — hooks into Apple’s push notification framework. I’ve never regularly used an RSS reader, because I would add a lot of feeds, then when I’d [...]

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App Review: Notifications for iPhone

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Reeder, iPod, Maps, Bejeweled 2, Notifications, Instapaper – TiPb Picks of the Week

November 23rd, 2009 at 08:00pm Under Hot Apple News+ Iphone

Every week a few of us from team TiPb, bloggers and forum crew alike, will bring you our current favorite, funnest, most useful App Store apps, WebApps, jailbreak apps, even the occasional accessory, web site, or desktop app if the mood strikes us. As long as they’re iPhone (or iPod touch) related, they’re fair game.

So [...]

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Reeder, iPod, Maps, Bejeweled 2, Notifications, Instapaper – TiPb Picks of the Week

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TV Show Lie to Me Lies to Us About Swipe-able iPhone SMS Notifications

November 19th, 2009 at 07:28am Under Hot Apple News+ Iphone

The TV show Lie to Me, a few weeks back (season 2, episode 3 to be exact) decided to take the lies just one step too far — they showed an iPhone where one of the characters could swipe between SMS notifications.

To the trained eye, of course, it was merely screenshots of standard model text [...]

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TV Show Lie to Me Lies to Us About Swipe-able iPhone SMS Notifications

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Get your notifications: experimental Mac app from Facebook

September 10th, 2009 at 06:15pm Under Hot Apple News

Filed under: Software, Internet Tools, Beta Beat

Mac-using Facebook fans are going to be happy to learn about Facebook’s experimental Desktop Notifications app. Desktop Notifications sits in the menu bar, and pops up notifications (using Growl if you have it) when they occur. It also gives you quick access to your news feed, profile page, and quick ways to update your status or start a new Facebook email message.

There are two things about Desktop Notifications that are compelling, yet have nothing to do with the app itself. The first is the fact that it’s a native Mac application, rather than yet another Facebook client written on Adobe Air. The second is that it was actually developed by Facebook themselves [Update] Thanks to Raul and Nate for pointing out in the comments that the application is marked as “not developed by Facebook”, though one of the developers listed works for Facebook. It’s unclear at this point how serious this project is; it’s clearly marked as experimental, which is clearly becoming the post-Gmail way of denoting that something is beta.

In terms of raw functionality, Desktop Notifications is pretty barebones, since most of what it does is take you to a particular Facebook page. Personally I kind of like it that way. It’s relatively light in terms of memory usage, and uses virtually no CPU cycles at all unless you are actively interacting with it, which is exactly what I want from a utility that is running all the time.

My one beef is that the built-in hotkey that pops up a status update dialog box conflicts with another utility on my system, and there is no way to modify it. Since Desktop Notifications is still in the experimental stage, that’s a pretty small complaint.

[Update] Commenter Scott points out that there is a preference setting to change the hotkey.

[via TechCrunch]

TUAWGet your notifications: experimental Mac app from Facebook originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 10 Sep 2009 11:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple approved Gmail app for iPhone. Has hell frozen over?

August 10th, 2009 at 09:00pm Under Hot Apple News

Filed under: Apple Corporate, Odds and ends, iPhone, App Store

TechCrunch is reporting today that an iPhone App that utilizes the Apple Push Notification system to let you know you have new Gmail is about to hit the app store. The app, called GPush, is developed by Tiverias Apps, and gives Gmail users an instant notification that new mail has arrived. iPhone users will still have to read their mail, either in a browser or the Apple Mail client, but the notifications will be essentially instant.

It’s an interesting development, given how badly other Google-related apps have fared of late on the iPhone. The developers of the app say it has been sitting unapproved for a month, and they are wondering about the timing of it suddenly being blessed.

Of course this app was not likely to get AT&T all hot and bothered, so it is not a perfect test of a seismic shift in the attitudes around Apple, but any change in the way the App Store works will be interesting to watch.

GPush will be US$0.99 for a week, then will be sold for $1.99 after.

via: TechCrunch

TUAWApple approved Gmail app for iPhone. Has hell frozen over? originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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By Mel Martin Continue Reading Apple approved Gmail app for iPhone. Has hell frozen over?Add comment

AIM Push Problems – Hacktivated iPhones to Blame?

July 21st, 2009 at 06:01pm Under Hot Apple News+ Iphone

Crunchgear is reporting that Till Schadde of Equinux has been noticing some weirdness with his AIM app and push notifications. Namely, Schadde has been seeing his AIM messages go to random recipients. He discovered this by being notified that a message he had sent to his iPhone version of AIM was redirected to a random [...]

By Jeremy Sikora Continue Reading AIM Push Problems – Hacktivated iPhones to Blame?Add comment