Ah, Friday: Time to kick up the feet and relax, assuming you don’t have to work the weekend. (Sadly, we do — feeling sorry for us yet?) Despite the weekend being upon us, today was a rather busy day in the tech world, with Apple briefly removing 3G-equipped iOS devices from its online store thanks to a Motorola injunction, RIM baiting Android developers with free BlackBerry PlayBooks and a whole lot more. Read on to find out what’s making news for this Friday, February 3, 2012.
If you live in Germany and have been trying to buy a 3G-equipped iOS device aside from the iPhone 4S in the last day or so, you might have been out of luck. According to AllThingsD, Apple removed all 3G-equipped iOS devices from their online store in that country with the exception of the iPhone 4S in compliance with an injunction granted to Motorola Mobility last December, part of the ongoing patent dispute between the two companies. Even as Apple was moving to comply, they were hard at work on an appeal, and this morning it came through — although it’s only a temporary measure until the matter is resolved, which patent expert Florian Mueller says could take upwards of a year. “Apple appealed this ruling because Motorola repeatedly refuses to license this patent to Apple on reasonable terms, despite having declared it an industry standard patent seven years ago,” an Apple spokeswoman explained to AllThingsD.
iOS developers must surely be getting a good chuckle out of this: BlackBerry PlayBook maker Research in Motion is trying to woo Android developers to their tablet by giving them the necessary hardware for free. According to The New York Times, “all an Android programmer has to do to get one is make a PlayBook app and submit it to RIM’s app store, BlackBerry App World, by Feb. 13.” We’re not even talking about native BlackBerry QNX apps here — RIM wants that Android goodness, presumably in the hopes of expanding its user base the way Amazon has with the Kindle Fire and its own Appstore. However, the report notes that RIM has an ulterior motive here: “Oddly, the PlayBook giveaway could have less to do with the tablet than it does with future BlackBerry smartphones.” Perhaps the idea is to lure Android developers and turn them to the Dark Side, writing QNX apps for the forthcoming BlackBerry 10 (and, presumably, the next PlayBook tablet as well).
While OS X Lion users had to content with a cryptic CUI error after installing Mac OS X 10.7.3 this week (assuming they could successfully open apps at all!), it turns out the seemingly harmless Security Update 2012-001 for Mac OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard that Apple pushed out at the same time is also causing some ticks in that big cat’s fur. According to Macworld, Snow Leopard users who install the update are finding they can no longer run PowerPC apps, which require Rosetta to run. “People have reported cursor glitches, printing errors, and crashes when quitting an application,” the report reveals. “The popular financial package Quicken 2007, which requires Rosetta to work on Intel Macs, appears to be a frequent victim.” Thankfully, an enterprising group of system administrators at a Nebraska high school have already come to the rescue with the aptly named RosettaFix, which swaps out the afflicted files for the ones installed prior to applying the Security Update. The only caveat is that the fix may not work for all apps, but it’s worth a try if you find yourself stuck with no other choice.
The creators of the popular Readdle Docs and PDF Expert apps are back, fresh from the recent Macworld/iWorld expo, with their latest work: Remarks, a .99 digital notebook app for the iPad. “Write down your thoughts, capture ideas and information, annotate documents and outline notes anywhere from university class to sofa at home,” the app description reads. “To let you write anything you have in mind we included all the tools you might need: pens and highlighters of different colors, floating text boxes, shapes and of course an eraser.” But this isn’t just a simple note-taking app: iPad users can also extensively annotate their notes, which are saved in PDF format and can be easily shared with others, imported to other iPad apps or even saved to the Mac or PC. Judging from early user reviews on the App Store, Ukraine-based Readdle has another winner on its hands with this 17.8MB app, which is now available and ready to purchase.
You may recall that the launch of iBooks 2 and the free iBooks Author was somewhat marred by a firestorm of controversy surrounding exactly what users could do with their finished work. According to MacRumors, many took the EULA quite literally, “believing that Apple was claiming rights to all content used in the production of the iBooks Textbooks, perhaps attempting to exclude books from being published in any other form.” Thanks to today’s iBooks Author 1.0.1 update, the licensing terms have now been clarified: Apple is claiming rights only to the .ibooks document format, while authors are free to sell their content in other formats as they please. A subtle change, but one that should send content creators back to the village to snuff out those torches and hang up the pitchforks — at least for now.
Follow this article’s author, J.R. Bookwalter on Twitter
This week’s games are addictive and packed with cute animals, making them too fun by half. You’ll be fighting your kids to get back your phone just so you can have a crack at these adorable discounted apps. Got a long car trip coming up for the weekend? Well, then, you’re set.
Time for another space journey as you pilot Tappi Bear through the cosmos. Navigate your way through meteors as you fire you donut canon but watch out that the aliens don’t get you! How far can you go? This fast loading universal game is a buck off, making it free for you. Enjoy and good luck!
Oh noooes! The evil space bubbles are set to invade and only you, Kiwi Brown, can save the day. Pop those bubbles through cycles of days and nights (bubbles don’t rest — what can you do?). Power-up for mega burst action in this charming free iPhone only app down from one dollar to just one tap in the App Store.
The classic brick breaking style game gets a few twists in this update on an old favorite. It’s not just you, your ball, and some bricks. Oh no, you’ll be working in the rain, in the snow, against high winds. You’ll be finding portals and all kinds of other hidden gems in this now free iPhone favorite.
Derby’s on an adventure to eat as many jellybeans as he can. You’ll fling him from peg to peg in this free iPhone physics style game. Watch out for thieving enemies who will try to steal your sweet treats. With the right aiming, you can toss this adorable little guy for hours without stop. Down from a dollar, but not forever, so what are you waiting for?
Some people are more fortunate than others — for example, yesterday’s Mac OS X 10.7.3 update is causing grief for many who used Software Update to install it, while our 27-inch iMac was smooth sailing all the way with this method. If you’re one of those affected, read on for the fix — and while you’re at it, stick around for a little bit and take in the rest of the day’s news for this fine Thursday, February 2, 2012.
Hey, nobody’s perfect, and that includes the engineers at Apple. As noted by Macworld, yesterday’s Mac OS X 10.7.3 update appears to be hiding a little bugaboo that has caused some grief for a number of users. Thankfully, there’s an easy solution, which is to download the larger Combo updater and simply install it over the system having the problem. So what’s the problem? It appears that a number of users who updated via Software Update “discovered upon rebooting that every app they launched would crash, and the ensuing error dialog box sported bizarre overlays: gradient boxes reading ‘CUI CUI,’ along with bright red question marks.” While the fix is easy, if your particular system is crashing every app, you may need to resort to using FireWire Target Disk mode from another Mac to install, or if worse comes to worse, use Lion Recovery mode to get things going again. No word yet from Apple on what the problem might be or how they intend to fix it — most likely they’ll pull the update and replace it with a patched version in the near future.
It’s been quite a week for video editors, with Apple releasing an update for Final Cut Pro X that finally restores missing features from the legacy version and now their rival Avid landing on the iPad with a .99 prosumer offering called Avid Studio. Avid is a familiar name in the pro video world, having pioneered much of the non-linear digital editing used by Hollywood. The company’s latest offering isn’t quite as ambitious, but aims to take on Apple’s own iMovie solution instead. Avid Studio promises “big-screen moviemaking” on the iPad. “Swiftly arrange your clips in the Storyboard, make precision edits using the Timeline, and add high-quality transitions, effects, and a soundtrack,” the app description reads. “Then share your movie directly to YouTube, Facebook, and more — or export your project to Avid Studio for the PC and continue editing with even more advanced tools.” Avid Studio is a 30.7MB download from the App Store and available now for .99.
MacRumors is reporting that Apple’s recent success with the iPhone 4S is paying off in many ways, including a new report out from research firm IDC today that positions Cupertino as the third largest manufacturer of mobile phones worldwide — and that’s not strictly smartphones, but rather mobile phones of all types. With a 128.4 percent year-over-year-change, Apple handily breezed from fifth place to third place, bumping rival LG down a notch. The iPhone maker is now perched behind Nokia in first place and Samsung in second place, although that pair will be much harder to dethrone: Nokia and Samsung sold 113.5 million and 97.6 million handsets respectively in the fourth quarter of 2011, compared with Apple’s relatively modest 37 million.
The folks at Microsoft-owned Skype are back for another heapin’ helpin’ of update fun for the Mac edition, with a new version out today that promises “improved video call stability and improvements to the calling interface.” Of course, that all comes on top of the VoIP giant’s recent bear hug with Facebook, which allows users to check news feeds, instant messages and even video call their friends with or without the client software, thanks to the wonders of modern browser technology. But enough of our yakking, it’s time to click the link and get your update on…
There’s been plenty of chatter this week about what everyone assumes is a bug with iOS 5’s iMessage service, which allows text messages to continue to be received even on stolen or lost devices. As it turns out, the “bug” only rears its ugly head when proper protocol is not followed. According to The Loop, one such incident recently documented by Gizmodo found a customer’s text messages inadvertently going to an iPhone owned by the Apple Genius who assisted her with an unrelated problem. Since the customer’s device had no SIM card, the Genius popped out his own and placed it inside the customer’s, causing a shift in the time-space continuum. Okay, not really, but it did cause the iPhone to start routing the customer’s iMessages to the Genius’ device. As it turns out, toggling iMessage on and off or having the customer put their own SIM card back into their device would have eliminated the problem, as explained by an Apple representative. Problem… solution.
Follow this article’s author, J.R. Bookwalter on Twitter
That surge of Twitter activity this evening was the internet going ape for Facebook’s new IPO filing today in an effort to raise billion. Hey, good luck with that, guys… we’re just hoping all that cash will bring some much-needed fixes to the website, but Zuck probably has some other cool stuff in mind. Oh, and don’t forget to download Mac OS X 10.7.3 which finally hit Software Update today — and while you’re downloading, maybe catch up on the rest of the news for Wednesday, February 1, 2012.
It’s the beginning of February, and that means the iPad 3 rumors are going to start coming in hotter and heavier than they have over the last few months. Like clockwork, the first one is already here, with BGR reporting that leaked photos from “a source claiming to be in possession of an iPad 3 prototype” reveal some key details of the much-anticipated third chapter in the iPad saga. Using a development tool called iBoot, the tipster reveals there could be only two iPad 3 models this time around: One with Wi-Fi only and another with combined GSM, CDMA and LTE that will work with all carriers, both here and abroad. The photos also allegedly reveal an A6 quad-core processor with the model number S5L8945X, which is right in line with numbering scheme for the original iPad’s A4 and iPad 2’s A5 processors. That said, the photos do nothing to stem the long wait for CEO Tim Cook and company to actually reveal the device, let alone a date as to when we can storm the castle — er, Apple Stores — to actually buy one.
After a lengthy period in beta with developers, Apple finally pulled the trigger on the Mac OS X 10.7.3 update, which is now available via Software Update or directly from its servers as a standalone 997.01MB download (a Client Combo is also available, which weighs in at 1.2GB). Among the improvements offered with the new update are language support for Catalan, Croatian, Greek, Hebrew, Romanian, Slovak, Thai, and Ukrainian, fixing issues when using smart cards to log into OS X, resolving issues authenticating with directory services and compatibility issues with Windows file sharing. Apple has posted full release notes which detail every nook and cranny updated with the latest version, and a Security Update 2012-001 is available separately for both Snow Leopard and Snow Leopard server.
It’s been relatively quiet on the iPod front since the media player got bumped from its annual product refresh last year, but TechCrunch is reporting that there may be something worth waiting for. According to Chinese blog Apple.pro, a sixth-generation iPod nano has been spotted with a camera on its square little back, which falls in line with rumors we reported about last year. You’ll recall the fifth-generation iPod nano introduced a rear camera, which was summarily axed the following year when the nano got smaller and more square. Of course, the tiny camera will likely be of the 1.3 megapixel variety — more akin to the front-facing camera of the iPhone 4S than that slick dude capturing images around back, but we’ll take what we can get.
Social networking app Path really made a comeback in 2011, increasing the number of friends to 150 and allowing users to finally share directly to Facebook and Twitter. Today, the company announced a new version 2.0.5 release which adds Depth, billed as “the best way to tilt shift your photos and the only way to tilt shift your videos on the iPhone.” Depth creates a miniaturizing effect for photos and videos by creating a point or plane of clarity and blurring the surroundings, and works in both Spot and Landscape modes as well as before or after an image is taken. The update also introduces pinch, tap, rotate and zoom for photos, tap and rotate for videos, clickable links, friend requests sorted by time and the usual bug fixes. Path 2.0.5 is available for download now from the App Store.
Though it was widely expected, the tech world went a little bananas this evening as social networking giant Facebook officially filed its Initial Public Offering (IPO), revealing that it “earned .7 billion in revenues last year and made billion in profits,” according to AppleInsider. The House That Zuckerberg Built is aiming to raise billion with its public offering, making it the highest amount ever for a tech company. The filing also notes that game maker Zynga makes up 12 percent of Facebook’s revenue with its virtual currency and advertising, but cautions that “our financial results may be adversely affected” should that relationship sour. In December, Facebook revealed that it had 845 million monthly active users, with 483 million active users on a daily basis.
Follow this article’s author, J.R. Bookwalter on Twitter
