Tag: iOS

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App Review: AppStart

Recently got an iPad 2? Been to the game for a while with the first gen iPad and thought you’ve exhausted every HD app out there? To quote Bachman-Turner Overdrive, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!”

AppStart by the folks at AppAdvice is an in-depth look at every kind of iPad app for use by power users or casual users.

With over 350,000 apps out there, finding the right one for your needs can be stymying. AppStart sets you in the right direction with its review of apps in different categories from turning your iPad into a laptop, to their game recommendations (gamers and non-gamers). Each category lists cherry-picked apps, along with a blurb describing them and even more importantly, their price. You’re given a good spread of free and paid apps to choose from. There is even a hardware review to help find the right iPad accessories.

The app’s layout alone is a marvel. Four pages long, each one is packed with the different categories and visually appealing clip art to go with them. Swiping down will scroll from page to page, and horizontal swiping will return you from the articles. The pages are so chocked-full of information that I find something new every time. AppStart truly takes advantage of how a digital magazine should be.

AppStart is free, but if you become smitten with it and want to get more (and why wouldn’t you), the AppAdvice app ($1.99) is updated every day.

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News

Apple’s Mac OS X Lion out by summer?

What is Mac OS X Lion? It is Apple’s latest operating system. Apple is going to take the best features from the iPad and implement them into the Mac with the new Mac OS X Lion. The Mac App Store, which is also available on Mac OS X Snow Leopard, will also be a feature on Mac OS X Lion. The Mac App Store will allow you to purchase apps and they will appear right on the new Launchpad that is also a new feature. The Launchpad is similar to iOS devices because it allows instant access to your apps. The Launchpad icon is on your Dock and with one simple click on the icon, a full screen display of all your apps appears. You can arrange your apps anyway you like by dragging them onto different locations or even into folders.  Mac OS X Lion gives you the opportunity to use your apps on the full-screen. You can also swipe the trackpad to switch to another app’s full-screen window or back to the desktop. Mission Control is another feature on Mac OS X Lion that allows you to view all programs running on your Mac and even click it to get to that program. Multi-Touch is also more responsive.

Other new features include Auto Save, which automatically saves your work by saving the changes made on the document, Versions, which lets you revert to older versions of a document, and Resume, which lets you restart your Mac and return to exactly what you were doing before you restarted your Mac. For checking your email, Mail 5 allows you to view messages in your inbox and let’s you see a preview of it. It also introduces Conversations, which groups emails together of the same conversation. AirDrop allows you to send files to other people nearby that are using AirDrop also. Your Mac is also more secure with XTS-AES 128 data encryption at the disk level. FileVault encrypt your external drives too. Lion Server is also a new feature that helps you set up your Mac as a server and enjoy the many benefits that it has to offer.

Apple is currently getting ready to release a Mac OS X Lion update to developers that may be called “GM1”.  “GM” typically stands for “Golden Master”. This means that the product is complete, but there can be a lot of bugs and performance issues that Apple has to work on. The launch of Mac OS X Lion will be released sometime in the summer, but it depends on how fast Apple can get rid of the bugs and other issues.

Feel free to leave a comment.

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News

Should Apple get in-app fees?

Apple has just released new App Store policies for in-app subscription sales. With the coming release of iOS 4.3, your iOS device will now be able to support in-app subscription sales, but there is a catch, Apple is asking for in-app subscription companies to pay a 30% fee, just like other in-app purchases. Any titles that involve subscriptions or purchasable content will have to offer an in-app option that cannot be more expensive than anywhere else. This will pose a problem for developers and vendors. They aren’t allowed to provide a link to an outside market for things that can be purchased within an app. In general, that means if I was a developer, I wouldn’t be able to sell an app that directs users to my own website to buy a subscription to my content. I would still be able to sell my subscriptions to customers I found on my own. It is also mandatory to make it possible for users of my app to purchase my subscription content through iTunes if I want to put my app on iTunes. There is also some reason why this is not a bad idea. Apple actually acts as a newsstand when it provides subscription. Apple provides the subscription service, manages the delivery of the content, and acts as a tollbooth by taking 30% of the revenue.

There is also an alternative called the Google Way, which makes content free when it’s placed next to ads. The downside is that the content generator gets a tiny fraction of the minimal ad revenue generated.

A big issue about this is that Apple thinks it is simple that if Apple brings a new subscriber to the app, Apple should receive 30% of the revenue, but if a publisher brings an existing or new subscriber to the app, the publishers keeps all 100% of the revenue. But can you really say that Apple brought a person to the app if the person decides to search up the app for a subscription because they already knew ahead of time that they wanted to subscribe to that certain company? You can’t really say that Apple brought the customer to that app. Another big issue is that maybe companies will decide to not make an app to begin with anymore. Big companies may decide that they don’t need to provide their service on iOS devices. What will we do now? There are many issues that will arise from this and it would be best to avoid it. I think Apple should rethink their ideas.

Leave questions or comments below.

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News

Apple working on new iOS notifications?

Is Apple working on a new iOS notification system? Apple may be buying a small company to build its technology into the operating system. Apple has been criticized for their average and often annoying notifications such as, new text messages, voicemails, and other ways have been criticized as the weakest part of their iOS. Last year, there were rumors that the iPhone notification would be fixed because of the return of Rich Dellinger, the chief architect of Palm’s system. It still hasn’t been fixed and if Apple does buy the small company, I hope that they do fix these problems. I think that the notification system is actually kind of annoying. Just think about it, you’re playing a game or you’re into a really good book, and all of a sudden a text message appears. I would get annoyed of that because it causes me to lose my concentration. Does Apple need to have us look at our messages all the time? Why can’t we just hear the noise or feel the vibration of the phone. I don’t see why we need to check our messages once w receive them. If the person that texted us really needs to reach us, they should call us. I mean, isn’t that really the main point of having a phone in the first place? Drop a comment below to let us know what you think of a new iOS notification system.

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Which iOS features should be on the Mac OS X?

Which iOS features would you want on your Mac? Touch screen definitely sounds like a fun feature for the Mac. Wouldn’t it be cool to change your Mac into a touch screen like an iPhone and change it back? There are rumors that Apple is planning to make an iMac with a screen that pivots into a horizontal touch mode. It sounds like it will be a combination of a Mac and an iPad. It sounds like they should call it a MacBook touch or something like that. Combining the features of both would be really cool because the touch screen is what attracts many users to iOS devices. There are also many other features that would be great for Mac OS X.

Virtual iPhone dashboard widgets could be a possible feature for Mac OS X. Your Mac would have a screen that looks similar to an iPhones, with wallpaper, apps, and etc. It would be easy to organize your programs and it would make use of all the free space on your desktop. When you look at your Mac desktop, it looks very empty and spacious, but your iOS devices have different pages of apps. Some may prefer to have this feature offered on their Mac. It should be an optional feature.

What else does your iOS device do that your Mac doesn’t? Your iOS device has the option to alert you automatically if you receive an email, even if your device is on sleep mode. Wouldn’t it be smart to give that feature to your Mac? The idea of having your Mac alert you that you have received a new email while the Mac is on sleep mode is fairly simple. Apple should definitely allow people to use that feature and for those that don’t want to, turn it off.

Have you ever noticed that when you play music off your iPod touch or your iPhone, it is simple and organized, but when you play music off iTunes, it can look pretty cluttered? Don’t you think it is time that Apple made an iPod app or Music app on your computer that may be simpler and more organized then your iTunes? I think so. Also, my iTunes can be really slow, so I think having an iPod app might help.

When you are outside, you take out your iPhone and can surf the internet from wherever if you have 3G, right? If you are lost, you can just check your GPS on your iPhone too and find directions. There are many people that also take their MacBook everywhere, so shouldn’t they have the same features as an iPhone? Should there be 3G for the MacBook? I think that 3G should be made available for MacBook users, especially when it is made available for the iPad.

Another feature that iOS devices have is that many iOS apps have notifications that are provided by third-party software. It notifies you if there is new information and other important news. Apple should definitely provide a feature that provides notifications for your apps on your Mac too.

When you go on an airplane, you can click Airplane Mode on your iOS device. But can your Mac do that? Not that I know of. If Apple adds that feature, that will be really helpful to those that travel a lot with their MacBooks. You should definitely add that feature on so people don’t have to manually turn off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth separately.

Your iOS device has iBooks and Game Center, but your Mac still doesn’t have either of them. It is about time that Apple provides iBooks as a feature. If I wanted to read a book on my Mac, rather then my small iPhone, I would really want that feature. Game Center should also be a feature for Mac OS X. People get pretty competitive with gaming on the iPhone and iPod touch. It’s time for the competition to get started on the Mac.

All and all, I figure that Mac OS X definitely needs an upgrade. Why does iOS have so many features that Mac OS X doesn’t have? It’s not because it isn’t useful on the Mac, so it’s probably about time for Apple to improve Mac OS X. Once Mac OS X gets more features such as an iPod app and touch screen, I can’t wait to use my Mac.

What do you think?

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