Good news, tweeps! Tweetbot, the incredibly popular Twitter client made by the folks at Tapbots, is now available for the iPad. Right next to the 2.0 release of their iPhone client, this brand new $2.99 USD Twitter app puts the competition to shame.

In portrait and landscape modes, this beautiful app feels truly native. This isn’t a copout à la Bejeweled Blitz with scaled up iPhone graphics. The UI takes advantage of the iPad’s screen without sacrificing negative space. Hands down, this is the best user interface for Twitter available on the iPad.

Instead of having a million drop-down lists, Tweetbot allows you to configure how you want the app to work. For example, you can have a triple-tap retweet of the selected 140 characters while a single tap slides down a display of common Twitter actions. Double tap, and you’re taken to the selected tweet’s page. Finally, a Twitter app that you don’t have to fight with.

Best of all, Tweetbot allows you to mute things from your timeline. Tired of Facebook spam? Just mute it. Is someone live-tweeting every damn event at SxSW? Just mute them for a week. This is a feature we’d like to see in more apps, and we’re incredibly pleased that Tapbots is working hard on innovation. Tweetbot is truly the spiritual successor to Tweetie.

If you haven’t already, go download it!

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It’s well known that some shady developers use less-than-tasteful tactics to get their apps to the top of the charts on the App Store. Turns out, Apple is finally taking a stand, and warning developers to knock it off or face severe penalties.

From Apple’s Adhering to Guidelines on Third-Party Marketing Services document:

That’s right. If you are caught using third party services to attempt to manipulate your way to the top of the charts, Apple is willing to bring down the axe. Not only will your app be removed, but you’ll no longer be able to sell apps on the App Store at all. If these instructions from Apple aren’t clear enough to these shifty devs, we don’t know what is.

If you’re employing a company to do anything you would be hesitant to talk about in the presence of an Apple executive, you should probably cease and desist. Apple holds all of the power here, and the App Store is a place with a lot of potential for revenue. Don’t risk your business by trying to game the charts. Just focus on making great apps, engaging with the community, and listening to your users. If you have what it takes, you’ll be successful without any tomfoolery needed.

Hat tip to MacWorld
Image Credit: Lara604

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Netflix is seeing some heavy competition from Amazon. Today, the Seattle-based online retail behemoth announced that they have struck a deal with Viacom for a massive catalog of TV shows for their Prime service.

Netflix, which has long used its contract with Starz for a nontrivial amount of their available streaming content, will be in for a substantial problem when that deal ends at the end of the month. This move from Viacom clearly shows that not only is Amazon very serious about competing with Netflix, but also that Viacom doesn’t want Netflix to get too big. Dominant distribution channels scare content producers like crazy it seems, and this wouldn’t be the first time Amazon steps in to be the shoulder the content producers cry on. Back when music still had DRM, the music companies were very grumpy with Apple, so they took their ball to Amazon’s court. Netflix is clearly in for a bumpy 2012.

So, what happens to Apple fans? Netflix is very popular among us because not only does it work on the Mac, but iOS and Apple TV stream Netflix content beautifully. There isn’t any way to stream Amazon Prime videos on your iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV. Would Amazon be willing to make an iOS streaming app? Is Apple willing to put Amazon Prime on the Apple TV? Let’s hope so, because soon it might be the only way to stream some of our favorite content.

Source: Amazon PR

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Hey Beatlemaniacs! The “Sir” Beatle and Apple are teaming up to stream a live performance directly to iTunes and Apple TV.

Considering all of the tension between the two Apples, Paul sure does like to pimp his new work through Apple Inc.’s marketing channels. It’s an interesting way of promoting your album, but sadly, only a member of the most successful band of all time gets to take advantage. Think of a world where buying an album on iTunes was your ticket to see a band streaming live. It would make music less of a commodity and more of an event. We’re hoping that Apple does more events like this in the future with lesser known artists.

Are you planning on attending virtually? What if you had to buy the album first? Would you put up the $10 USD album cost to see the walrus live on the Internet? We’re curious if eConcerts could work, and if Apple would be willing to do them. Sound off in the comment section and hit us up on Twitter. Our handle is @macgasm. We want to hear what you think, so don’t hesitate.

Hat tip to MacRumors
Image Credit: Mike Krzeszak

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Innovative iPad accessories just keep on coming. This time, Twelve South, the makers of such great products as the PlugBug, has made an iPad stand call the HoverBar that clamps onto your monitor or desk to allow you easy, adjustable access to your favorite tablet.

This incredibly awesome arm latches onto your iMac, Cinema Display, or desk with a silicone-lined clamp, and it allows your iPad 2 to float next to you as you work. If you want to make it into a second monitor, it’s easy to do with applications like DisplayPad or Air Display. Alternately, you can keep drawing apps like PenUltimate and Adobe Ideas open for quick note-taking and sketching as you work.

If you want a HoverBar of your very own, it is available for purchase on Twelve South’s website for $79.99. If you’re in the United States, you won’t even have to pay for shipping for a limited time. Get on this!

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A former Apple intern, now a full-fledged Apple engineer, used the experience of porting the underpinnings of OS X to an ARM architecture as the basis of a paper. Until now, it was under embargo, but some details have emerged.

Of course, iOS uses ARM chips already, so this isn’t much of a surprise. This isn’t OS X’s first port in any case. Famously, Apple switched from the PowerPC architecture in 2006 to Intel’s x86 platform. While Intel is incredibly dominant in the space of traditional desktops and laptops, they just haven’t been able to compete with ARM’s low powered mobile processors.

This isn’t indicative of a move away from Intel for Macs any time in the immediate future. That said, Apple would be foolish not to hedge their bets by maintaining a version of OS X for ARM. Unless Intel steps up its game substantially, we could be looking at a future where ARM chips power the desktop as well as phones and tablets. We’re already seeing Microsoft shift away from their once notorious relationship with Intel.

Do you think ARM-based MacBooks will ever be a reality? Is Intel is serious trouble? Sound off in the comment section. This is a topic with a lot of angles to discuss. We want to hear your thoughts.

Source: Electronista
Image Credit: Terry Johnston

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Have a grandfathered unlimited data plan on AT&T with that shiny iPhone of yours? Well, you’re in for some bad news. Reports are coming in that users who consume over 2 GB of data in a month using their unlimited data plan are now being throttled to the point of near-uselessness.

Of course, if you switch to their newer tiered-style plans, you won’t be throttled any more. You’ll just be paying an arm and a leg. “You wouldn’t want something bad to happen to your data, Mr. Johnson, would you? For a small fee every month, we can… protect you.”

That said, this is only a problem for legacy customers. You can’t even buy an unlimited data plan from Verizon or AT&T anymore. The only company that offers unlimited plans (for the time being) is Sprint. Who knows how long that will last? We’re living in a data-hostile environment at a time where everything under the sun wants to use data. Somethings gotta give, and we don’t think it is going to be pretty.

Source: Cult of Mac

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Deutsche Bank’s Chris Whitmore has taken note of Apple’s increasing competitive advantage with the iPad. He’s done the simple math of combining tablet sales with notebook sales to see how Apple is eating everyone else’s lunch. Not only that, but he thinks the rumored iPad 3 will expand Apple’s lead.

The iPad is becoming more powerful with each hardware bump and major OS release. It is taking over tasks that notebooks used to do, and doing them better with less power and hassle. Meanwhile, the Kindle Fire, new as it is, is closer to a larger iPod touch than it is a reinvented notebook. Android and Windows tablets have a long way to go to get to where the iPad is now. Who knows how long it will be until they can start competing? They have their work cut out for them.

With so little noteworthy competition, Whitmore thinks Apple is primed to hit a stock price of $600. It’s in Apple’s reach, and 2012, just like the past two years, will be the year of the iPad.

Source: AppleInsider

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It’s looking like Apple is cracking down on some developers not using the officially licensed iPhone images in the advertising of their apps.

Mike Arrington, PandoDaily:

While we understand that Apple is worried about controlling their brand, the question still remains why they don’t explicitly allow developers to use any white iPhone imagery to advertise their app. With some restrictions, devs are licensed to use Apple-approved iPhone images to display their apps. Unfortunately, only black iPhones are among the approved in the license. As it stands now, there isn’t any known reason for this to be the case. Maybe they are still reeling from the embarrassment of not being able to ship the white iPhone 4 on time. Alternately, Apple may just like having a Vader-like grip on how their devices are used in marketing.

What do you think? Should Apple lighten up on their restrictions for developers? Sound off in the comment section of this post so we can hear from you. We’re curious to see if you all have any plausible theories.

Source: PandoDaily

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After much complaining in the community about Apple’s end user license agreement for iBooks Author, Apple has pushed a new update that clarifies the restrictions.

iBooks Author EULA:

Turns out, Apple doesn’t actually care to own your content. They just want their 30 percent if you’re using their free tool to make money. That’s not an unreasonable position to take. At the very least, it is roughly consistent with the way Xcode works for iOS. Apple doesn’t want to own your app. They just want a cut of the revenue from using their resources.

Hate on iBooks Author all you want, but their EULA isn’t really unfair. If you don’t like the terms, that’s fine. Just use another tool to make your eBook. Apple isn’t in the business of making others money without getting theirs.

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Eric Slivka over at MacRumors is reporting that a number of users still on Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard were affected by this week’s security patch that left PowerPC apps using Apple’s Rosetta broken.

While it is noted that some people are reverse engineering the patch, we don’t recommend you touch anything like that. If you have a backup — like you always should — from Time Machine or SuperDuper, just restore to a previously working version. If not, just hold tight until Apple fixes this. Dicking around in system files is bound to cause more problems than it’ll fix. Trust us on this.

These issues with the latest updates for Lion and Snow Leopard just emphasize how important backups are. I ran into the horrid “CUI” issue on my main machine, but I have hourly backups that had me up and going within hours. Please take a moment and set up a backup system if you haven’t already.

Hat tip to MacRumors
Image Credit: Hans Hillewaert

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The Internet is abuzz with a rumor of Apple having a strange and unusual event this month. Well, there is another rumor going around calling the first rumor complete and total horseshit.

Jim Dalrymple, The Loop:

So, Jim says that there is no event. Given his experience and reputation as opposed to the questionable Macotakara, we’re going to believe Jim.

Everyday we see more and more spaghetti being thrown at the wall in our community. Here at Macgasm, we strive to keep our heads on straight with all of these crazy rumors flying around. When something seems strange or hard to believe, it is probably bogus. Heck, most believable rumors are bogus. Until you hear something directly from Apple, don’t place any bets — just a word to the wise.

Source: The Loop
Image Credit: Polina Sergeeva

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This Apple Television rumor just won’t die. Steven Musil at CNET is reporting that the oft-quoted Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster says that Apple is in talks with screen manufacturers.

Firstly, analysts are rarely, if ever, to be trusted. They are notoriously terrible at guessing what Apple is up to. Secondly, even if Apple is approaching manufacturers about screens, it doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll see an Apple Television — let alone an Apple Television any time soon. If true, these discussions could simply be Apple doing research on the market. That said, let’s hope that they really are working on making an Apple Television.

I have regular dumb displays in my home. They are simply receptacles for HDMI devices. If Apple can do something different and make a television that offers more than the Apple TV plus dumb screen set up, I know I’d consider buying it. Many of you are in the same boat, and so you’re looking for evidence that it will become a reality. It’s just too early to know if the Apple Television is real, though. Just remember to take what analysts say with a grain of salt.

Source: CNET

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As of this week, T-Mobile is now selling Square credit card readers at select retail locations in the United States. This isn’t their first retail pretense, though. In April of last year, Apple started selling Square readers in their retail locations. Of course, anyone or any business can go to Square’s website and get a card reader and account for free. That said, it is pretty hard to stock a free item in a retail store. Also, you do get the convenience of having the card reader available immediately instead of waiting for USPS to get around to delivering your package. It makes sense.

At this point, it is hard to understand why everyone everywhere in the US doesn’t accept credit cards. When I worked as a community evangelist for a genealogy company, I was in charge of selling accounts to our service at our booths at conventions. I used Square on the company’s iPod touch, and it was a wonderful experience. In fact, most people were pleasantly surprised that we could just swipe their card instead of only accepting cash or doing a manual credit card transaction.

From personal experience, I only have positive things to say about Square. Any opportunity for more people to get access to this great service is a good thing. Let’s hope this is the start of a world-wide trend.

Source: BGR

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This is great news for our non-American readers. Frankly, it is surprising to us that more applications don’t take advantage of region-specific content. Localizations aren’t just slight spelling and grammatical differences. Flipboard’s move to customize content for different localities is very commendable. While I like reading things that are US-focused, I would never expect someone in Australia to want to read the same thing.

Is your Flipboard experience better now? Sound off in the comment section and let us know if you’re getting better recommendations. We’re particularly interested in hearing about this topic due to our international predilections.

Source: Flipboard Blog

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A while back, I was looking at HTML5Test in my browser of choice: Safari 5.1.2. MPEG-4 and h.264 were listed as supported codecs for the HTML5 video tag, and that is to be expected from Apple’s browser since those are their formats of choice. Ogg Theora, unsurprisingly, is not supported. Then I looked down to the next line, and I saw that WebM, Google’s “Open” format, was in fact supported.

I did a lot of testing to see what the deal was. Nobody seemed to be reporting this, so I thought that there must be something up. By luck, I happened to be wiping a MacBook Pro and giving it a fresh Lion install, so I was able to try out Safari without any system modifications. Oddly, WebM support disappeared. What was different in my main machine that allowed WebM support in Safari? After a bit of googling, it looks as if Perian, the “Swiss-Army knife for Quicktime,” is the culprit.

By having Perian, or a similar program installed, it transparently lists WebM as a compatible codec for playback through the video tag. Developers don’t have to do anything special. They just write standard HTML5-compliant code, and your Perian-boosted Safari will act just the same as if they were using h.264.

While it isn’t quite as easy as having everything baked into the browser by default, this is a good intermediate step on the road away from browser plug-ins. At this point, HTML5 video support is so broad, Flash is almost never needed on the web.

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Ed McLaughlin, lead of “emerging payments” at MasterCard, talked to Fast Company about the future of NFC in smartphones. He sidestepped the question about Apple, but it’s pretty clear something is up:

Apple is on the vanguard of sales and retail. Without a doubt, they want their users to have the best possible experience when purchasing things with their phones and at their retail outlets. When Apple figures out the best implementation, we’ll be sure to see it.

With the sheer number of phones sold as well as the mind share that Apple has, they’ll need to be on board before NFC-based payments can really take off. Sure, some Android phones have had NFC for a long while, but the market has responded with a firm “Big whoop.”

Do you think the next iPhone will include NFC? What about the iPod touch and iPad? Sound off in the comment section below this post, so we can really explore this topic.

Source: Fast Company

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This incredibly fun video pays homage to the visual and auditory symphony that iOS and Mac users experience on a daily basis. We think you’ll appreciate it.

Also worth noting is that Chris Crutchfield, the director, editor, and composer, composed the music in Logic and Reason while editing the video in Final Cut Pro X.

Hat tip to MG Siegler

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Included in this update are a few interesting things. The forward button no longer appears until the back button is clicked. A new API is included to help developers make full-screen web apps. More importantly, two substantial crashes, one OS X only, are now fixed.

That said, Firefox 10 is still jacked up on the Mac. Listed in the known issues of the release notes are Growl 1.3 issues and problems playing Silverlight video on some OS X machines. The old-style scroll-bars are still the only option in this latest version, and they are just as ugly as they were in 9.0. While Firefox does now support gesture-based navigation, it doesn’t bother to give you a visual cue as to what is happening. If you accidentally swipe, good luck knowing if you went forward or backward. Lastly, the fullscreen mechanism isn’t even the standard Lion kind. It is their own special sauce that acts differently than how Mac users expect.

Sigh.

Despite the increase in releases, it doesn’t look like Firefox is getting much better at all for us Mac users. Thankfully, Safari and Chrome work incredibly well. We’ll just continue shaking our heads at Mozilla.

Source: Mozilla

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Apple’s WebKit is the backbone to many things these days. From iPhone to Android and from your favorite browser to your favorite gaming console, chances are that some of the content you see is rendered by WebKit. In this video, one of NetFlix’s user interface engineers takes the stage at HTML5 Dev Conf to discuss the pros, cons, tips, and tricks of running a WebKit-based application on devices like the PS3 and low-end smartphones.

If you’re curious about why your Netflix client doesn’t update the information immediately if you start scrolling quickly, this is a good explanation. If you’re a developer, he gives some decent tips about how to make your app run decently on low-end equipment. Good advice, and I’ll bet there are very few companies with more experience in this realm than Netflix.

Would you like to see more nerdy videos like this? Go ahead and subscribe to our video feed on Frequency. On the web or on your iPad, you can watch them in a beautiful, easy to use interface.

Hat tip to WebKitBits

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Now that the CES foofaraw is well over, a few interesting tidbits are starting to come to the surface. Specifically, this interesting bit of news about Sony supporting AirPlay made us raise an eyebrow.

Joseph Palenchar, TWICE:

That’s great news. When you’re an iTunes or iOS user, AirPlay is wonderful. Be it through an Airport Express or an AppleTV, AirPlay makes watching and hearing your favorite content anywhere in your house as easy as a tap or two. More companies supporting Apple’s AirPlay standard is fantastic.

As it stands, playing audio and video from iTunes on your consoles requires a lot of tomfoolery and use of apps like MediaLink and Connect360. Those solutions don’t even support the iTunes DRM scheme. While music no longer has the chains of DRM, the movies and TV shows still do. Let’s hope that this is a good sign, and we’ll see more AirPlay-compatible devices in the near future. Maybe Sony will take the hint, and add it to the PS4? That would certainly be a nice development, but we won’t be holding our breath.

Source: TWICE

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While we haven’t checked every country’s store front, we can confirm that the following countries have the 4S in stock:

• United States
• United Kingdom
• Australia
• Canada
• Ireland

Sadly, the Hong Kong online store does not have it available at this time.
Because of Apple’s incredible economy of scale, they could be making iPhone 4S devices for many, many years to come. We’ve seen the 3G/3GS chassis stick around for years, and it finally looks like Apple has ironed out every glitch in the system to have the supply chain running smoothly for the iPhone 4S. So much for the 4S being a “Disapointment.”

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It’s interesting, and we’re glad to see T-Mobile making a move to support its customers. That said, it does bring up the nagging question of official T-Mobile support from Apple. As it stands, unlocked GSM iPhones work on T-Mobile, but only with 2G data. As we all know from the original iPhone’s launch, 2G (aka EDGE) speeds are atrocious.

As of now, Apple sells its phones on Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint in the United States. That leaves T-Mobile as the last major carrier without an iPhone of their very own. How long until that changes? Surely they are at a substantial disadvantage by being the only network without the best selling smartphone in the US. Their shareholders must be going bonkers.

Source: TmoNews

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In the simplest of terms, a future magsafe connector would know when you plug in your MacBook Pro as opposed to your husband’s MacBook Air. It would then be able to change settings automatically. That is insanely cool technology. What’s even more impressive is that the magnet can be programmed and reprogrammed at any time. Imagine a reality in which everything you plug into or go near automatically knows what your device is and what its surroundings should change to accommodate it.

Keep in mind, patents aren’t necessarily indications of what Apple plans to do in the future. Even if Apple does have plans, Patently Apple points out that these patents were only filed this past July. It’s likely that an implementation, if any, is years away.

Source: Patently Apple
Hat tip to Apple Insider
Image Credit: DeclanTM

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After Léo Apotheker, ex-CEO of HP, essentially killed WebOS, I can imagine Jon wasn’t very happy. While HP’s current CEO, Meg Whitman, is open sourcing WebOS, the project he spent so much time developing isn’t on firm legs.

Of course, Jon is well known for working with Apple and helping to develop the iPod. It’s a shame that such a smart guy and his passion project got wiped out because of terrible management at the top of HP. That said, we’ll probably see something great in the not-too-distant future from Jon. He’s a brilliant guy, and it seems like he has many more years of innovation left in him.

What do you think about his departure? Is WebOS completely dead now? Sound off by leaving a comment below this post. We’re curious about what you think.

Source: All Things D

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Good news, gamers! Steam Mobile is available on your iPhone and iPod touch right now. While of course it will work on your iPad, it sadly isn’t optimized.

With this free app you can see which of your Steam friends are online, chat with your buddies, and shop for Mac and Windows games. If you’re a heavy Steam user, this will make your social interactions a lot easier. Just because you’re on the train doesn’t mean you can’t be messaging your bro-hams (that’s the lingo the kids these days are using, right?).

This is great, but don’t start thinking you’re going to see Steam selling games on the iPhone. We saw Apple drop the axe on an in-app gaming platform before, so this isn’t a likely first step for Steam to enter the mobile space. At least on iOS, that is.

It does bring up an interesting question, though. Maybe Valve, maker of hits like Half-Life and Portal as well as the owners of Steam, is interested in making games for mobile platforms. It’s certainly possible. We’ve seen that great first-person shooters can be made for iOS thanks to Rage HD. This probably isn’t Steam’s beginning for the mobile space, but it could signal Valve’s.

Hat tip to Joystiq

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Frequency, an online video hub service, is a fantastic place to find a ton of great content. As of today, that includes us here at Macgasm. Our channel will automatically update with any video we post anywhere on the net. You don’t need to go to YouTube and Vimeo to find our content. Whatever we post, you’ll be able to find it right here.

If you want to subscribe to our Frequency channel, just head over directly to our page and click the follow button. Of course, you can get to it any time by going to Frequency and searching for Macgasm.

In your browser or in their snazzy free iPad app, you’ll be able to watch great Macgasm content easily anywhere you have an Internet connection. We’re really happy to be featured here, and we hope you enjoy.

Have a question about this? Leave a comment below this post or hit us up on Twitter: @macgasm. Anything we can answer, we’d be happy to, and we’ll forward any questions we can’t answer to the good folks at Frequency.

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AT&T has announced a handful of interesting things about their business in Q4 2011. Two things in particular are very interesting to Apple and its fans:

Just to be clear, sales and activations are two different but related things. AT&T sold over nine million smartphones while activating over seven million iPhones. Activations can include more cases than just new phones, but it is safe to assume the vast majority of activations are from new sales.

Hot off of the heels of Verizon’s announcement that over half of their smartphones sold in Q4 2011 were iPhones as well as Apple’s record-setting quarter, these numbers are very good for the US’s second largest carrier. We can’t wait to hear Sprint, the third largest carrier, talk about how many iPhones it sold. Meanwhile, T-Mobile weeps mournfully in the corner.

What do you think of all of these numbers? Is the Android market finally hitting its saturation point? Sound off in the comment section, and let’s talk it out. Financial reports have never been this fun!

Source: AT&T

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After Meg Whitman took charge of HP after the disastrous rule of King Léo, she announced that HP would be open sourcing WebOS. Today, we’re seeing the first step in that process happen with the release of “Enyo,” HP’s JavaScript application framework.

More interesting, we’re promised that HP’s implementation of WebKit as well as their own Linux distribution will be made available in the coming months. It’s nice to see that WebOS isn’t dead, but it certainly isn’t thriving. This truly is a Hail Mary in hopes of salvaging the rubble that HP’s previous leadership created. Let’s hope that this at least leads to other platforms implementing some of the nicest aspects of WebOS. Even if it doesn’t take off, it might be useful for future products à la NeXTSTEP.

What do you think of this news? Will WebOS be able to survive as an open source project, or will it be broken down and used for parts? Sound off by leaving a comment below this post.

Source: HP webOS Dev Blog
Image Credit: dground

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The source said various sample devices are also floating around (which vary slightly from one another) so it is impossible to tell which one will be the final. Some things in common with all of them, however, are:

• 4+ inch display (made by LG on at least one of them).
• No teardrop-shaped devices as was rumored in the lead up to the iPhone 4S. Samples so far have been symmetrical in thickness. Also longer/wider.
• None of the sample devices have the iPhone 4/4S form factor.
• None of the devices are final versions,

Frankly, we think this is bullshit. These specs are generic enough that any Joe Blow that has read the echo chamber for more than a day could come up with them, and probably did. It’s also been beat into the ground all of the issues that would come with increasing the size of the iPhone screen from 3.5-inch. We’ll eat our hats if the next iPhone’s screen size is significantly different.

This rumor also has the next iPhone announcement coming this summer. That’s more likely than the screen-size increase, but I’m not taking any part of this rumor without a sea full of salt.

Source: 9to5Mac
Image Credit: ell brown

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Last week, we reported that the iPhone 4S is likely coming to China’s third largest cell network, and clearly that is a result of the pent up demand. China, like the rest of the world, just can’t get enough cowbell iPhone.

Interestingly, Tim Cook and the executive team at Apple clearly knew China would be a substantial market, but didn’t predict the demand would outstrip supply so heavily right off the bat. They’re ramping up production as fast as possible, and we’re pretty sure Cook is determined not to leave any money on the table in China:

Those numbers show the iPhone 4 was very successful in China, but the 4S clearly took the ball, and knocked it out of the park. We can’t wait to see how the 4S sells throughout 2012.

Source: BusinessWeek

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Good news for fans of retro-style photography. Analog, Realmac Software‘s popular photo manipulation app for Mac OS X, has been updated to version 1.1.

Here’s what’s new in this update:

• Slider to change the intensity of the Filter.
• Three new Filters: Insta, Lost & Found, Cape Town.
• Two new Borders: Dissolving, Screen.
• Improves performance.
• Fixes issues with corrupt exports.

If you have already purchased Analog, this update is completely free for you, and you can grab it here. If you’re interested in buying your own copy, it’s only $6.99 for a limited time in the Mac App Store. Keep in mind, you’re going to need to be running OS X 10.6.8 or later on a 64 Bit Mac. If you have a Core 2 Duo, Core i3, Core i5, or Core i7 Mac, you’ll be good to go.

What are your thoughts on Analog? Is it your favorite photo manipulation app on the Mac yet, or is it still in need of some tweaks? Sound off in the comment section of this post, or you can hit us up on Twitter. Our username is @macgasm, and your feedback means a lot to us. It helps us choose which stories to cover on the site.

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Well, this is certainly interesting. CNN is reporting that the average value of sales per square foot of an Apple store is roughly the worth of the White House.

David Goldman, CNN:

What’s more amazing is that the next most valuable US chain of retail stores, Tiffany, only averages $2,974 per square foot. It is absolutely mind-blowing how incredible Apple has done in the retail space. It makes us want to go back and catalog each and every one of the critical articles written about Apple when they announced their entry into the market.

From personal experience, I know that from opening until closing my local Apple Store is busy. Very busy. In fact, they actually had to move the location of the store in my mall to a bigger section of the building just so that they can fit more people. Last week, I happened to be out at 2PM on a Thursday, and the store was filled with people. The anecdotal evidence and the hard sales numbers completely boggle the mind.

Are you surprised at how much money Apple is making from retail? Tell us why by leaving a comment below this post. We’re very interested in hearing from a doubting Thomas.

Source: CNN
Image Credit: DUCKofD3ATH

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Verizon just had their quarterly earnings call today, and there is some big news regarding Apple. Turns out, about 55 percent of all smartphones sold by Verizon in Q4 2011 were iPhones. It looks like Android’s grip on sales wasn’t so strong after all.

Kelly Hodgkins, TUAW:

Despite what gadget reviewers and Android fans say, it turns out LTE support, a ridiculously larger display, and “Openness” aren’t actually a big deal. The iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 on Verizon, phones that have 3.5-inch screens and lack LTE support, are thoroughly whipping all other phones. If Verizon had the free-with-contract iPhone 3GS like AT&T does, it is easy to imagine that the chasm would be even wider.

This is further evidence that analysts and gadget writers, on the whole, just don’t understand Apple or the market for Apple products. At this point, you could make a fortune by betting against Apple predictions. Tim Cook and the executive team at Apple are far from perfect, but they know what they’re doing, and the sales and profits show that in stark black and white.

Source: TUAW & Verizon
Image Source: Obama Pacman

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Martin Bryant, The Next Web:

After discussions and a reported failed buy-out attempt of Dropbox, Apple was clearly interested in making a Dropbox competitor. While MobileMe is no more, iCloud has been implemented, and it has been a lot smoother than Apple’s previous attempts at the cloud. What is curious is why Apple has taken a completely different route with iCloud. The skyrocketing success of iOS has a lot to do with it.

The appeal of Dropbox is its simplicity. It’s merely a folder that syncs. It’s great for the traditional model of computing. Drag a file here, and drop a file there. Boom. With iOS, there is no file system available to the user. You can’t just go around tapping and dragging files willy-nilly. iCloud, instead, works as application syncing rather than file syncing. The data and settings for iCloud enabled apps will sync to the cloud automatically. It’s baked in, and it is clearly designed with iOS in mind. Sadly, it isn’t exactly great on the Mac. Sure, your contacts and calendars will sync, but you can’t throw your Word or Photoshop document in iCloud for syncing. It doesn’t work that way.

It remains to be seen if Apple has plans to make an iCloud syncing folder system to compete with Dropbox, but with a recent funding round of $250 million, Dropbox doesn’t seem too worried about it.

Source: The Next Web

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Kevin McLaughlin, CRN:

Among the tech crowd, WebOS was considered an interesting competitor to the iPhone and Android phones. When it was announced last year that WebOS was shuttering, it was a dark day. Meg Whitman has promised that HP will continue WebOS and eventually get back into the tablet market, but it may be too late for WebOS as a platform to ever take off.

That said, the lessons learned from the rise and fall of WebOS could be very useful for Apple. Because WebOS has heavy use of Apple’s own WebKit throughout the entire operating system, Apple obviously has places for ex-WebOS team members. Using their experience and knowledge to tighten up web app integration on iOS or even OS X could mean really interesting things for the future of app development.

Source: CRN

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John Paczkowski, All Things D:

While this is way too early to tell if Apple’s textbook initiative has legs, these numbers are promising. At the very least, it shows that there is an interest in the textbook market for a better solution. What remains to be seen is if Apple can disrupt textbooks like they were able to do in the early aughts with the music industry.

Besides adoption in schools, the other interesting variable that has yet to be seen is if other companies are going to try to go head to head with Apple in this market. Will Amazon see this as a challenge to the Kindle’s dominance in the eBook field? If so, they might try to undercut Apple with device pricing for schools. The education sector, if it bothers to step up, is in for an interesting few years ahead. When Apple takes notice of your market, things are likely to be shaken up quickly.

Source: All Things D

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Ian Austen, NY Times:

It’s been clear for quite some time that Research in Motion has lacked the leadership that it needs to compete in a post-iPhone world. Apple transformed the meaning of “smartphone” when it launched the iPhone in 2007, and RIM’s BlackBerry devices and software just couldn’t keep up the pace. They’re still stuck in the mind frame of Treos and Windows Mobile.

Hopefully, this shuffle of leadership marks a turning point for the Canadian company we’ve grown to dislike so much. If the company takes a mulligan this year, and starts making best-of-class hardware and/or software, RIM might still be salvageable. The iPhone and Android could certainly use some competition to drive innovation, and Windows Phone 7 and the ghost of WebOS aren’t really providing that.

Source: NY Times

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That certainly is a bold prediction. I am hard-pressed to see why Apple would implement USB 3.0 in any of their machines. Clearly, they are betting big with Thunderbolt and Intel. If they build in USB 3.0, it undermines the adoption of Thunderbolt. Clearly, Thunderbolt is the superior technology, and we’re seeing more manufacturers jump on the Thunderbolt bandwagon already. Unless the market for Thunderbolt completely fails to take off, there isn’t any good reason for Apple to support it — even if it is easy to do so with their platform of choice.

What do you think? Is Apple going to be using USB 3.0 any time soon, or will Thunderbolt continue to be their only next-gen connector technology? Sound off in the comment section so we can hear your thoughts. Let’s talk it out.

Source: Cult of Mac

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It is looking like the iPhone 4S is likely to make its debut on China Telecom:

This past year has been huge for the spread of the iPhone. Instead of just spreading to more locations, Apple has been focused on supporting more carriers in locations around the world where the iPhone is already available. In the US, we’ve seen the iPhone go from being available solely on AT&T to additionally being available on the top three cell networks in the country. The only major network without an iPhone in the States is T-Mobile, and despite that it can run unlocked GSM iPhones on its 2G spectrum.

This regulatory green light in China is just another example of Apple’s slow-and-steady roll out of iPhones to damn-near everyone in the world. Apple is working its ass off to make it as easy as possible to buy an iPhone no matter where you are or what network you use. At this point, there isn’t much of a reason at all not to buy an iPhone if you’re in the market for a smartphone.

Source: WSJ

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Don’t get too excited though, you little political idealist, you. If you wanted to buy one, it would cost 9,999 yuan or roughly $1,584 USD. If you wanted some of the premium communist services it offered, you would need to drop another 3,800 yuan or roughly $600 USD. That’s pretty expensive. Well, even if you wanted one, it looks like the Chinese Government is doing its damnedest to erase knowledge that this has ever existed after it received substantially negative reviews. I just want to pinch your oh-so-predictable cheeks, Chinese government.

Don’t fret, freshman political theory majors, if you really want to red-up your iPad, the WSJ points out that you can buy Mao’s little red book for the iPad for only $2.99 USD. Phew!

Source: WSJ

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So, Apple announced iBooks 2 today, and with that came a bunch of improvements for textbooks. We want to show off some of the benefits of these changes, so you can see for yourself. It’s almost enough to make us wish we were in school again.

Just by tapping an area of the book, a video will launch. This is very slick, and will really help people who learn better from visuals and audio as opposed to just plain text. When the video is expanded to fullscreen, it really shows off the benefits of having an iPad.

At the end of the chapter, you no longer have to flip back and forth to an answer key. In the review section, you’re provided with a multiple choice question, and you’re immediately told if you got the answer right or not.

Highlighting and notetaking have never been easier. As someone who always hated ruining a textbook with markup, these tools would have revolutionized my academic career. Just a few taps and drags, and you can highlight and note any text. If only the Kindle app was this easy.

Of course, if you just want a traditional textbook interface, all you have to do is switch to portrait mode. At any time, you’ll be able to easily switch back and forth between traditional and dynamic interfaces.

These updates are very welcome, and it is only a matter of time before we see a publisher really take these tools to the next level. Maybe reading won’t be such a quiet activity any more.

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Up to this point, iTunes U has mainly been used for lectures in video and audio form. Somewhat impressively, there have been over 700 million downloads of iTunes U content. Today, Apple is announcing a brand new iTunes U app that will let teachers design and disseminate their entire class.

Teachers can now customize their class, offer a syllabus, update the hours of their availability, and give assignments right inside iTunes U. In addition, the iTunes U app now allows on-demand streaming of any available lecture. No more need to download and sync if you don’t want to.

iTunes U has been used at the college level up to this point. As of today, K-12 schools can now sign up and use iTunes U as well. Very exciting, and big news for kids.

This wonderful learning app is offered completely for free, and is available in the App Store today.

Image Credit: The Verge

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If you’re focused on just reading instead of interacting, though, switching to portrait mode will bring you right back to the boring old black and white. Also, the interface is noticeably less obnoxious. A lot less “IT’S JUST LIKE A BOOK,” and a lot more cool.

Very interestingly, the summary of each chapter is now interactive as well. Instead of just checking boxes, you’ll be able to get immediate feedback on what you retained from the chapter, and what you forgot.

Flashcards and notes are also important tools, so iBooks is tackling them as well. Just a few taps, and the content from your book is now in a flashcard for you to study with. Better yet, you can randomly shuffle them so you’re not dependent on the order. Highlighting and notetaking are always easily accessible.

Of course, all of the benefits of iBooks remain. Once you purchase a book, you can keep it forever and redownload it at will.

This is a free update to the iBooks app, and it is available today.

Check out the rest of the news from the event here.

Image Credit: Macworld & The Verge

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Mac OS X Lion 10.7.3 is on the way! If you’re a registered Mac Developer on Apple’s development site, you can now download the latest beta (Build 11D46) of Lion 10.7.3.

Snow Leopard launched August 28th, 2009, and it didn’t see its .3 release until March 29th, 2010. Lion shipped to consumers on July 20th, 2011. If we see 10.7.3 launch in February, it will be a similar seven month window.

Hopefully, we’ll see better iOS to OS X integration via iCloud in one of these maintenance releases. What are you waiting for in these releases? Stability? Performance? Let us know by hitting us up on Twitter. Our username is @macgasm, and we love hearing from you.

Hat tip to TUAW

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Considering all of the talk of the 4S being a disappointment, it is very telling that it took this long for the supply of iPhone 4S devices to meet demand. No doubt, the iPhone 4S, like each new model of iPhone before it, will be the best selling iPhone in history. Keep in mind, the iPhone 4S is topping the charts quickly followed by the iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS.

What do you think about this? Why was there so much talk about being disappointed with the 4S when it has clearly been a huge hit for Apple? Sound off in the comment section below this post, and let’s talk it out.

Hat tip to Electronista

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Lucky so-and-sos! Clare Trapasso of the New York Daily News is reporting that a retail developer in Queens is attempting to convince Apple to build a new retail store. With five retail locations in Manhattan and one in Staten Island, a new location in Queens would make a total of seven stores in the city that never sleeps.

Of course, New York City’s enormous population explains the number of Apple stores, but it does look silly on the surface to have so many retail locations in such close proximity. Some poor souls don’t even live in driving distance of an Apple Store. Think of those poor schlubs UPSing their broken iPhones to Apple instead of getting prompt service at a Genius Bar. When it rains, it pours. Enjoy yourself New York. Just know not all Apple dorks have it as good as you.

Source: New York Daily News
Image Credit: Incase

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Oy vey! Japanese Apple blog Macotakara is reporting that they have sources that say an iPad announcement is coming next month, although the product won’t ship until March.

Macotakara, verbatim:

It’s not exactly ballsy to predict a new iPad in March. Consensus around the Apple community has long put the iPad 3 in a Q1 2012 launch window. It is interesting that they’re going out on a limb, and saying that we will see it announced a month early. Even if they’re right, which we have no evidence that they are, it could be as simple as an announcement at the very tail end of February with a shipment in the first week of March.

In any case, buying an iPad 2 right now would be ill advised. Even if the iPad 2 sticks around, it will likely see a price drop. Unless you absolutely need an iPad for work, just wait about six to eight weeks for the latest and greatest.

Source: Macotakara

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Truth be told, incorporating Blackberry branding and services into Android-based phones would be an interesting move from a company like Samsung. Instead of being hamstrung by Blackberry OS, just glue their (in)famous email backend and messaging service to stock Android. Bam! Now you have a phone that isn’t just a direct photocopy of an Apple phone. That would certainly be a step up for Samsung.

Is RIM doomed? Is their sinking ship going to take down the entire Blackberry brand? Take a minute to drop us your thoughts on Twitter. Our account is @macgasm. We want to hear what you think about this giant mess at RIM.

Source: BGR

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As of today, iTunes Match is available in the following countries:

• Argentina
• Bolivia
• Chile
• Colombia
• Costa Rica
• Dominican Republic
• Ecuador
• El Salvador
• Estonia
• Guatemala
• Honduras
• Latvia
• Lithuania
• Netherlands
• Nicaragua
• Panama
• Paraguay
• Peru
• Venezuela

Unlike the digital locker services provided by Google and Amazon, iTunes Match scans your library, and automatically matches any song you own with a version already in the iTunes Store. Instead of having to upload your entire library for cloud hosting, you only have to upload the songs that aren’t sold by iTunes. This makes for a much quicker and less bandwidth intensive solution. Of course, the other major benefit is that iTunes Match is baked right into iTunes and iOS. Once you provide your Apple credentials, all of your music is available for streaming on your Mac, PC, iPad, iPhone, or iPod.

If you’re just now trying iTunes Match, jump in the comments to let us know what you think. We’ve been using it here in the US and Canada for a long while now, and it’s been fantastic.

Source: Apple
Image Credit: Christian Fischer

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