The fingerprints of iOS encroaching on OS X may be more tangible than realized. As I’ve watched Apple — in particular its video offerings — over the years, it occured to me sometime last year that if you want to know where Apple is taking OS X with regard to iOS, here’s a sure bet: Watch iLife.

2007

Two things happened in 2007. The first is well-known. In January of 2007, Steve Jobs revealed the iPhone to the world, and the world hasn’t been the same since.

The other event was a bit of a PR nightmare for Apple. In August, amidst the wake of the June release of the first iPhone, Apple rolled out iLife ’08, which included, among its standard offerings, an updated iMovie. iMovie ’08 had been completely redesigned by one Randy Ubillos — originator of Adobe Premiere, Final Cut Pro, and now Final Cut Pro X.

iMovie ’08

Upon its release, David Pogue said, “iMovie ‘08 is an utter bafflement… incapable of the more sophisticated editing that the old iMovie made so enjoyable…”

And look at all the changes — no processor-intensive effects, no plugins, one project at a time, and support for a limited amount of codecs, revolving primarily around MP4, which even Final Cut didn’t support at the time.

As I mentioned last year:

Because it was a 1.0 program, the “missing features” distracted everyone from the big UI overhaul. It’s on the list, but I think it is primarily the UI that drove Apple to resort to, as Pogue says, “throwing away a fully developed, mature, popular program and substituting a bare-bones, differently focused program under the same name.”

So coming at it from a positive angle, let’s look at what was gained with iMovie ’08 over its predecessor: one project at a time with one video viewer at a time, MP4-based editing, large regions and formed scrollable windows within a single application framework with lots of dragging versus precise clicking.

In short, it was made to be touched, not clicked.

D8

There’s been speculation about a touchscreen Mac for a long, long time. Back at D8, Steve Jobs famously spoke of how the tablet had been in the development stages for a long time, but advancements, primarily in touchscreen technology, caused Apple to opt for redirecting resources to the design of a mobile phone.

Today, the touchscreen Mac is really already among us — a quite capable personal computer running a version of OS X, albeit slightly different. We know it as the iPad. The touchscreen Mac of tomorrow may simply be an evolution of today’s robust iPad, handling tougher, more demanding processes and situations.

iMovie for iOS

Three years after the relase of that first iPhone, three years after the complete redesign of iMovie, we see iMovie for iOS — one of the first Apple-made, non-system, powerful apps for iOS that was built for the every day user. For you. For I.

And man, looking at iMovie for iOS during that keynote revealed one thing: the app looked a lot like that redesigned iMovie ’08 for the iLife suite. What started off as a surprising redesign that people like Pogue didn’t understand at the time began to make absolute sense. It was no surprise when we found out that the man behind iMovie for iOS was the same Randy Ubillos that redefined iMovie with the ’08 edition earlier.

If the iPhone is really five years ahead of the competition like Jobs suggested, that could very well mean that the concept of iMovie for iPhone and iPad could have been floating around as early as 2005, right about the time iMovie was not doubt being rewritten from the ground up. Think about that for a moment. Done? Can you see where this is all going? The picture is certainly starting to get a little bit clearer.

iOS X?

Near the end of his thoughts on the iOS-ification of OS X, Viticci asks, “Will Mac-only applications (and thus Mac-like from a UI standpoint) like Aperture, Final Cut and iBooks Author ever be ported to iOS, triggering an iOS-based rewrite and redesign? We don’t know yet. But soon, maybe?” He then proceeded to link the word maybe to potential specifications for the rumoured upcoming iPad 3.

My guess is that with new hardware on the way for both iOS devices, with iOS 6, and a new Mac OS already well into planning stages at Apple, porting the code for these programs will be a small, final roadblock, should the company decide it’s time to completely bring its professional applications to iOS. Heck, there’s even recent reports that a graduate student was working on testing OS X on ARM architectures while working on his thesis.

Video Apps

This brings us to the most iOS ready professional application in Apple’s portfolio — Final Cut. The UI changes in Final Cut Pro X really start to make sense now. I don’t recall anyone wanting FCP to look more like iMovie, do you? Few of the UI changes facilitate the other new conceptual designs of the FCP underbelly. My only thought is that — as I suspect with the iMovie ’08 changes — they must be preparing us for the inevitable touchscreen Mac.

With iMovie ’08, Apple found itself on the receiving end of  garrish backlash from dedicated users. Pogue’s critique of iMovie ’08 sounds eerily similar to today’s critiques of FCPX. Now, Apple has no doubt fumbled the release of FCPX, but even if everything from 10.0.3 had been present back in June, there still would have been a mass outcry regarding the UI redesign. Once again, just like with iMove ’08, the limitations of an app have distracted us from seeing the potential future.

Photography Apps

What about Aperture? Go look at it. It embodies the iLife-ification of Apple’s pro application lineup. It’s recent changes have mirrored iPhoto updated: face recognition, UI tweaks, bigger buttons, fullscreen modes, etc.

iBooks Author

There’s no way this app was developed inside Apple without someone thinking about making the software touch-friendly So, where does that leave us? Look again at Apple’s first power apps for iOS — iWork — and their desktop doppelgangers, and iBook’s path to iOS is pretty clear.

iCloud

Viticci contends that iCloud is the place to look if you want to know where iOS and OS X are headed. Obviously, I disagree. For the near future, sure. But I see iCloud as an extension of the operating system, a new part of it that doesn’t exist on your device. It’s huge technology that bridges the gaps between our existing day-to-day computing, and sometimes in small ways we now don’t even think about. Casual consumers aren’t taking notes about iCloud. iCloud is plumbing, only noticed when it breaks.

Conclusion

So, I still say, if you want to know Apple’s grand vision for the future, watch iLife.

We now have GarageBand on iPad and iPhone, the iOS Photos app has incorporated some of iPhoto’s editing capabilities, and no doubt a lot of learning from iOS can be seen in iLife ’11, as Viticci handily points out.

While maybe not what some might call the “core” of Apple’s business, it’s no doubt that the casual computer user (aka “consumer”) is the broad base that keeps Apple’s bottom line nice and cushy. Apple sneaks its newness into our every day lives in ways we don’t realize, bringing these new elements into our relationship with our devices; sometimes we don’t see it happening until we’re told that it’s actually occurring.

Tapping into the future

There are certainly many areas in which Apple is navigating the winds of an ever-changing technology industry and a demanding market. There are no doubt many occasions where us fanboys credit Apple with vision when in reality they are figuring it out as they go. I may be doing that here, but I firmly believe that a personally-interactive, wireless, smart, ultra-portable tablet was Jobs’ vision from the beginning decades.

Like a stereogram, the image before us today is beginning to come into focus. Jobs and Apple painted the picture a long, long time ago. It’s only now that it’s starting to make some actual sense.

Photo Credits: eoshd.com, TidBITS, WIRED, socialphy.com

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There’s doing it, and then there’s doing it right. It’s pretty clear that Dave Morin immediately realized Path’s misstep and took immediate action to clean up the security concerns that its users had with the company storing contacts. Starting today, in version 2.0.6, users are now being asked if they would like to upload contacts to the company’s servers. The process is now opt-in, not automagically uploaded behind your back. It’s a small win, but a win nonetheless for iPhone users.

Yes, it’s a small win. Why? Path is hardly the first, and they certainly won’t be the last service that takes iPhone users’ contact information to provide better friend recommendations within a service. For some reason, Path was the lightning rod for all that pent up security anger that consumers have been harboring for the last couple of years. Facebook’s app currently does it, although they give you a disclaimer. But, God knows what Facebook is doing with that information. In the summer of 2010, Lookout published a study that found that one-third of the apps tested (300,000) on both Android and iPhone not only phoned home, but also transmitted contact lists, or retrieved a user’s location. The App Genome Project (February 2011) has recently found that 11 percent of apps on Apple’s App Store have the ability to access users’ contacts.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s really never a good excuse for accessing personal contacts, or even uploading them without the knowledge of a user. The practice shouldn’t happen, ever. That being said, Path is far from the only big name application that does this to its users.

We didn’t run the article yesterday because Path was just the tip of the iceberg for this problem. We’ve gotten some questions about why we decided not to run it. The short of it was we were giving Path some time to reply. The long of it is that it just didn’t feel right kicking Path underneath the bus that so many other apps ride these days. The whole bus needs to be disassembled instead of one company getting kicked off the ride.

We’re glad Path took the steps necessary to quickly eliminate the problem, but we’re more concerned about all the applications out there that do this that we’re not aware of at this point. If anything, Apple needs to start forcing developers to ask users if they’re comfortable with sending contacts to their servers. Apple requires publishers using Newsstand to have readers opt-in to information sharing, so why isn’t it happening in a market place where anyone can develop and upload an application? We’re skeptical about major publishers having access to contacts, but man, it freaks us out to know that a company like Zynga, or even a random high school kid down the street could  completely misuse our contacts, and gain from it financially in some way.

That’s the problem here, not Path. The problem is that somewhere along the way this practice was not only occurring, but that it’s continually being allowed to happen. That needd to change. Props goes out to Path for changing the practice. We love them for it.

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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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Without a word, EA unleashed Battlefield 3: Aftershock into the US App Store today. One would assume that with the massive success of its cross platform predecessor, they might have made a bigger deal about bringing it to mobile. After playing it, however, one begins to understand why this might have been an intentionally quiet release.

There had been some talk back in mid-late 2011 from EA about releasing a mobile version of the huge success monster that is Battlefield 3. The release of that game came and went back in October without much further talk of the mobile game. Then today, out of nowhere, there it is in the US App Store. Sometime publishers are odd.

So, the game is awful. It looks nice, sure, but that doesn’t count for shit when the rest of the game is virtually unplayable. In fact, I’m so displeased with it I’m only going to offer a brief, bulleted list of why it sucks harder than a toilet in an airplane bathroom:

• Its online multiplayer component is slow as shit
• There is no single player feature
• In-game ads are there to stay since there’s no pay-to-upgrade-to-premium option
• Users have already been complaining of control issues and major glitches
• You only get four weapons, and that’s including your knife
• The game has a built-in movie trailer for Act of Valor, and when you watch it, you can unlock a new weapon. Are. You. Kidding.

Yes, I know it’s a free game, and you can’t really expect a whole lot from that. It’s just that this game seems painfully incomplete and lackluster considering the franchise it’s a part of. Hopefully this is simply a soft release, and there is more content and more options in the works. Please stop disappointing us, EA. Do the franchise a solid, and make Battlefield 3: Aftershock worthy of its title.

Source: TouchArcade

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We’re going to let you discover the rest of the update goodness on your own.

The app update is free for anyone who has purchased the original Tweetbot, so you don’t have to worry about paying an additional couple of dollars to gain access to the update.

Tweetbot is easily my favorite Twitter app for the iPhone, and even more so now that Twitter decided to completely bastardize its own offerings earlier this year. Normally we’d suggest trying out a free alternative for Twitter, like the free Twitterific option, but Tweetbot is easily worth the $2.99 on the App Store. I paid the fee, and I haven’t made a switch yet, which is highly unusual for me when it comes to iOS apps.

Quick Look At Some Updated Features

Quick Update: Tweetbot is now available for the iPad too… we’re putting it through the paces and we’ll have an update here for you when it’s ready.

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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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With the upcoming release of Mass Effect 3 for PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, BioWare and EA have announced that a full featured third person shooter companion game is coming to the iPhone and the iPad. I’m not sure about you guys, but I’m just going to let EA’s last attempt at a Mass Effect mobile game stay hidden in the darkest recesses of my memory and hope for the best on this one.

The premise of the game involves you having to rescue prisoners from a hostile Cerberus base. The word is that you’ll have access to a fairly stocked arsenal of weapons and powers from the Mass Effect universe, so you’ll get to take advantage of that as you gather evidence against Cerberus. One of the neatest features with Infiltrator is that each time you complete a rescue mission or gather intel, it will automatically increase your Galaxy Readiness rating through the Galaxy at War system in Mass Effect 3. If that actually works, it’s already better than the last one.

There’s no word yet on when Infiltrator will be available on the App Store, but it’s probably safe to assume it’ll be a timely launch with Mass Effect 3 which comes out on March 6^th. Keep your eyes peeled, Commanders.

Source: Slide To Play, IGN

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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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The speaker lasts between 5 – 10 hours depending on how you’re using it. The speaker will set you back $55.00 and you can buy it on the Austrailian website ModLifeOnline.

To be honest, this probably won’t last too long on the market once Apple’s lawyers find it, so make sure you pick it up as fast as possible if you want it.

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According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Apple has gone on the record stating that, “the telecommunications industry lacks consistent licensing schemes for the many patents necessary to make mobile devices, and offered suggestions for setting appropriate royalty rates that all members would follow.” Long story short, Apple wants a fair and open approach to licensing technology that has become standard in the mobile telecommunications industry. Currently, it could become very difficult for competing companies to gain access to the necessary patent licenses to release a mobile phone.

Apple wants the EU and ETSI to set clear rules about how patent licenses are negotiated, and to ensure that companies working on and developing standard-centric licenses agree to license patents under FRAND terms.

In the original article, it’s pretty clear that Apple, and more specifically Apple’s intellectual property head Bruce Watrous, is worried that the current system gives patent holders a huge advantage in negotiating patent licenses because competing products could be forced to remove products from the market place due to injunctions. Apple’s legal team wants injunctions to be abolished under FRAND terms.

The EU is currently investigating both Samsung and Motorola’s patent licensing practices for anti-competitive behaviour.

If you’re interested in reading up more on this topic, you can give the Wall Street Journal article a read, but sadly, it’s behind a paywall.

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From the Washington Post:

If I was in the US, that unlimited data plan would be mighty enticing. It always blows my mind just how obvious it is that customers want the freedom of an unlimited plan, but carriers absolutely refuse to give it to them. I rarely use over 2GB on my data plan, and I’d still go for an unlimited option if it was available to me. The irony is that it’s not about the data being unlimited as much as it is about not wanting my carrier to clean out my bank account for going over once or twice a year.

If you’re interested in the ins and outs of the Sprint financial call, the company has posted a news release online for you to look through.

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A recent research by Dr. Michael Mandel of South Mountain Economics says that the smartphone industry has created nearly 500,000 new jobs for the economy. It’s hard to doubt such a claim. Since the release of the iPhone in 2007 and the announcement of the App Store one year later, a new market has been created. The app market. I remember when applications were just seen as tiny games that we played while waiting for the train or in the doctor’s office. What were some of their names? I believe Cube Runner was one of them. Great game, but you wouldn’t think that a company could rise from that, right? You’d be correct. The app was created by one guy, Andy Qua. Great guy, but I highly doubt he’s accepting resumes for positions. So that’s where we were one to three years ago. However, today is so different. This is now where the jobs are.

An app can now be a company. Don’t believe me? I’ll list some out right now. Ness, Zite (acquired by CNN), Evernote, Pulse, Path, and Instagram. Not only are those the names of both the apps and the companies, but the CEOs of four out of the six made BusinessInsider’s The Silicon Valley 100 list; right up there with people like Larry Page, Steve Jobs, Kevin Rose, Dave McClure, and the rest. How did they make it up there? Apps. But not just any apps. Apps with impact. That brings us to the study.

With the app economy generating nearly $20 billion in revenue in 2011 (this includes downloads, in-app sales, virtual goods, and  physical goods and services), it makes you wonder where this new phenomenon is heading. Will this soon generate Fortune 500 jobs? Will landing a high-ranking job at a startup that produces one or two apps become the definition of success?

When you break down the research report, it shows that when it comes to employment, just about each app represents job opportunities. Whether that be as a programmer, user interface/experience designer, marketer, or manager, they’re all jobs nonetheless. The new haven for such job opportunities are found in places like NYC, San Francisco and San Jose (Silicon Valley), though the last two substantially exceed that of New York with nearly one in four jobs being app oriented, naturally. However, states like Florida, Georgia, and Illinois are getting there too. In fact, more than two-thirds of this app economy employment is outside of California and New York. The research results also suggest that the app economy’s hotspots and job numbers are likely to shift greatly in a few years.

So what does this mean for the average consumer? You might think not much if you’re not a programmer. However, it’s the polar opposite. It’s beginning to look like apps are becoming the new foundations (or building blocks) for strong companies. Have a well made app? Build a team around it and form a company. Every company needs a support staff, engineer, designer, manager, etc. So if any of that fits your criteria, you’re in good standing. If you’re not, you’re still in good standing. My series of interviews with founders, creators, and leaders of major apps easily suggests that you don’t necessarily need to understand C++ or SDKs to build an app. Have a reasonable idea? Can it become scalable? Then you might be the one sifting through applications in a few years.

All in all, this research and this article both make reference to the fact that our economy is changing – rapidly. No longer are we subject to a degree to pay the rent. Creativity is the way of the future. When it’s harnessed into creating an app, that app can bring food to other people’s tables. With nearly 500,000 jobs created (and counting), an economy breakthrough might be on the horizon. It seems that Steve Jobs’ motto has finally come to fruition: “Stay hungry, stay foolish.” Five years ago, if you were to tell your mother you’d ditch college to make a game, she’d probably disown you. Today, Rovio, creator of Angry Birds (which is a game if you didin’t know), is worth more than $1 billion. How does that sound, Mom?

You can check out the full research sponsored by Technet titled “Where the Jobs Are” here.

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Today Apple sent out a notification to iPhone developers, informing them to begin submitting Retina resolution screenshots of 960×480 pixels with future app submissions and updates to current ones. This could only suggest one of two things. Either the company is tired of seeing blurry images in their “pixel-perfect” App Store, or this is just preparation for the end of the iPhone 3GS. With a lower resolution of 480×320, the 3GS is the longest surviving iPhone model with a sale lifespan of over two and a half years (this June would make three). Of course, this shouldn’t be a daunting task for developers as “Retina” has been in their vocabulary for over one year now.

Nevertheless, this could also hint at another iPhone model on the horizon. That would push the iPhone 4 into the $0 slot, the 4S into the $99 slot, and the iPhone 5 at regular price of $199+ with contracts. Then there’s also the possibility that Apple might soon send out another call to developers for doubling the resolution for the iPad. After all, word on the street is the rumored iPad 3 will come with a shiny Retina display.

Via: TheNextWeb

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When I first saw this post by Jim Cramer, I thought for sure it was going to reference the Samsung Super Bowl ad I laughed at maniacally during its entire minute of ridiculousness. (A stylus AND a screen that I could mount in my home theater?)

Alas, it drew my attention instead to the presentation of the Super Bowl trophy, pointing out the free advertisement that Apple was getting. My little brother already pointed out to me during the ceremony that there were numerous iPhones drawn recording this timeless, (usually) once-in-a-lifetime event. Behold, real people, witnessing a huge event in their lives, using the iPhone to remember it forever. Cramer says it best: “Nope, there was an ad worthy of Steve Jobs and the company he built.”

There you have it, folks. Try as they might to emulate real-life situations in their ads, usage is king. I watched it a couple of times more, and I counted 12+ iPhones, 6+ of which were white iPhone 4/4S.

How cool is that?

Source: The Street
Image Credit: NBC

Hat tip to MacRumors because they beat me to this post.

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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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Zynga has been seeing more than its fair share of questionable publicity lately concerning the blatant ripping off of games like Tiny Tower.  When an alleged ex-Zynga employee took to Reddit yesterday to divulge the inner workings of the game giant, it did nothing to help Zynga’s case.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Reddit, I’ll give you a quick rundown of what it is and how it works. Most basically, Reddit is a website that is made up almost exclusively of user submitted content. Users post links, photos, questions, videos, etc. into categories called subreddits, and other users will upvote the posts they like and downvote the posts they don’t. The front page of Reddit consists of the most popular posts. And yesterday, one of those posts was an ‘Ask Me Anything’ post from a user who claimed to be a former engineer for Zynga. Since Reddit is the home of pretty much the funniest people on the Internet, shit got real up in that thread real quick.

People immediately started asking questions about what he thought about the Tiny Tower versus Dream Heights ordeal, and what kind of things went on behind closed doors at Zynga. Some of the answers were unsurprising, and some of them were just plain unsettling:

The guy who started the thread has since apologized and deleted some of his comments, but it’s still available to read. If you’re at all interested in this kind of juicy information, I recommend taking some time to read through all of the comments.

Personally, Zynga has always kind of left a foul taste in my mouth, and if this guy was legit, this rare insight into a giant gaming company has only made it worse. With the amount of money and manpower a company like Zynga has, it boggles my mind how lazy and not creative they seem to be.

Source: TouchArcade

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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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Fans of one of the most popular platform games on the iPhone, League of Evil, will be happy to know that a sequel is coming back to iOS next week. After all of the rave reviews the first instalment received, we’re thinking that League of Evil 2 won’t disappoint.

The original game was praised for its well-designed controls and awesome fast paced gameplay. We’ve been told to expect more of that with a tasty side of Retina quality graphics.

League of Evil 2 will be released right away as an iOS universal game, so you’ll be able to play it on your iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. It will feature a ton of new enemies and over 100 new action packed levels.

Is it February 15^th yet? Excitment level: urination

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From The Globe and Mail:

That’s really the only new information in the entire article, which eventually goes on to rehash all the rumors we’ve heard around the Internet the last couple of months.

Curious about the veracity of the claims? We are too. If Apple is trying to get companies like Rogers and Bell to partner with the company to bring content to its new-age television viewing device, they would at some point have to get their hands on it. That being said, hands-on would be extremely limited, and only occur at the highests levels, making it unlikely that information would leak from Rogers or Bell. Apple sends out iPhone models to carriers before the phones are released on networks, but they’re extremely locked down, and provide very little detail about what the phones look like. The same would happen with these televisions, if they actually exist.

Rogers and Bell aren’t the first companies to be approached either. It was reported earlier this year that CBS’s CEO let it slip that Apple was approaching networks to get content locked up for the Apple Television. With all the chatter, it certainly sounds like Apple’s out there trying to make deals before an Apple Television gets released. It could be a while though; there’s no timeline or indication of when a product could ship.

Read Rogers, BCE vying for a bite of Apple’s iTV on The Globe and Mail

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Apparently this isn’t the first punch thrown in this fight either. Last year Apple sued Proview Shenzhen to gain rights to the iPad name, but lost the lawsuit in court.

From China.org.cn:

We thought we’d seen it all, but it turns out we haven’t. The timing of the lawsuit is advantageous considering the explosion of Apple popularity in China recently.

Macgasm - Apple Tips, Apple News, Apple Everything.

In this week’s episode we sit down with N-Product co-founder Dom Coballe to talk about the Deckster iPod nano timepieces.

The iWatch case from N-Product is built with a variety of materials, and made by hand, and it’s entirely designed, produced, and assembled in North America. Some of the straps are designed using recycled material like bike tire rubber, inner tube rubber, as well as leather.

[Download][Direct Feed][iTunes]

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The quote has got me thinking a little bit about search engines and where that kind of technology is heading in the future. Aggregating results from the Internet and providing results to the webizens isn’t something that’s going to disappear any time soon, but the way we interact with a search engine is changing dramatically. With spam results both from SEO spammers and Google prioritizing its own results within a search, honest, unbiased, and valuable results are rarely being prioritized on the native Google search results page these days. Siri, and by extension, any application, can reach out and take advantage of multiple search databases, and provide users with relevant results, without ever having to visit the Wolfram Alpha website, or Google.

The steps taken by Apple to get Siri access to important information is pretty genius, and it’s undoubtably redefining the way we use search engines and get results. Instead of relying on one source, like Google, for all of your results, Siri could reach out to different services to gain access to search results. For instance, looking for a new music album? Siri could reach out to iTunes or Spotify, or any other service of your choice. Looking to rent a new movie? Siri could return results from Netflix. Want to read some new Apple news? Hell, Siri could reach out to Macgasm and search our database for results. In every one of these cases it would be almost impossible for SEO spammers to game the system for better search results, and in every one of these cases, Siri would get more accurate results directly from a service that specializes in the information Siri is looking for instead of relying on generalized services like Google. Siri is already reaching out to Yelp for its restaurant location-based recommendations, what’s to stop it from doing something similar for other popular requests in music, film, or news?

Apple is actually directly competing with Google doing what it does best, piecing together existing technologies into a more intuitive and usable service. Search just got a whole lot more interesting, if you ask us.

Read Wolfram, a Search Engine, Finds Answers Within Itself on The New York Times

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Buddy Beers iPhone app from Buddy Beers on Vimeo.

The service lets you buy beers for friends at partner bars worldwide using paypal or in app currency. The application creates a voucher that you can use at the bar. Sounds like you’ll be sipping on those delicious, free golden brews in no time.

Not so fast, there’s probably a downside

This app, like plenty of “deals” and “discount” apps before it, will have a hard time getting off the ground. Bartenders will be looking at your voucher like you’re from another planet, and they’ll likely accuse you of trying to get free beer. Buddy Beers isn’t the only service to have this problem. Just ask FourSquare how many problems they had when customers would try to redeem a reward from within the app. Standing in line at a popular coffee chain, I won a free drink. It took me a heck of a lot time and energy to convince the staff that I had won. A couple of phone calls up the chain later, I was walking out the door with my beverage. Something tells me this is going to be more of the same. It’s going to be a while before employees and staff at pubs and bars realize what’s going on, and accept a voucher for a free beer. But hey, you’ve got to start somewhere, and this is a service I can get behind.

It’s cool, and hopefully it catches on. I wouldn’t mind you guys sending me free beers all the time. You’d do that for me, right?

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The AndrewMFilms group has put together a hilarious video of Siri going absolutely psychotic, killing people. No, seriously. Killing people. No joke. Siri is now a certifiable psychopath. Screw Chucky. Siri’s my new nightmare.

Check out the fun video.

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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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According to a press release filed by Honeywell, seven patents are being infringed upon:

• U.S. Patent No. 7,634,504 – “Natural Language Installer Set Up for Controller”
• U.S. Patent No. 7,142,948 – “Controller Interface with Dynamic Schedule Display”
• U.S. Patent No. 7,584,899 – “HVAC Controller”
• U.S. Patent No. 7,159,789 – “Thermostat with Mechanical User Interface”
• U.S. Patent No. 7,159,790 – “Thermostat with Offset Drive”
• U.S. Patent No. 7,476,988 – “Power Stealing Control Devices”
• U.S. Patent No. 6,975,958 – “Profile Based Method for Deriving a Temperature Setpoint Using a ‘Delta’ Based On Cross-Indexing a Received Price-Point Level Signal.”

Beth Wozniak, president of Honeywell, has gone on the record stating: “Competition is good and we welcome it, but we will not stand by while competitors, large or small, offer products that infringe on our intellectual property … From our iconic ’round thermostat’ to the first programmable and simple-to-use touch screen thermostats, Honeywell is known for setting the standard in home comfort and energy efficiency.”

We’re all for companies and lawyers protecting intellectual property, but at some point we all need to sit down and figure out whether or not this patent system is doing more damage to innovation than it’s worth. We’re pumped about the Nest. Heck, we’ve even done a review on it. Sadly, I can’t say the same for Honeywell.

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According to CNET, Audience, a company responsible for a chip in the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S that reduces voice noise, has a newer chip in the iPhone 4S called “EarSmart” that makes Siri possible.

From CNET:

The EarSmart technology works by processing audio, enhancing and isolating “primary voice signals”, and then suppressing the surrounding noise. Long story short, without the EarSmart chip in the iPhone 4S, Siri has a hard time distinguishing exactly what it is you’re trying to say. The technology works on the iPhone 4, as hacks have shown, but the results aren’t nearly as flawless as they are on the iPhone 4S.

It sounds pretty concrete now that Siri will not be available on the iPhone 4 any time soon, considering the phone lacks important Audience technology to power the feature.

Read Why Apple’s A5 is so big–and iPhone 4 won’t get Siri on CNET

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This is unfortunately where Final Cut Pro X finds itself today. Here’s another great simile from cinematographer Chris Marino: ”…with CS6 on the horizon and MC6 making strides, fcpx is like the ex girlfriend trying to get back together with a new haircut.”

The FCPX disconnect

It’s interesting to me, because parts of the whole FCPX saga are so un-Apple. Now, don’t get me wrong — the part where they completely revamp a program, stripping it of essential features, then roll those features back in? Very Apple.

But historically, Apple is not about specs, but rather the sense, the feel of the device/OS/app. And normally, this works out great for them — iPod, OS X, iPhone, iOS, iWork, iCloud, etc.

But with FCPX, it has completely backfired, which I think gets to the heart of the argument from professionals that Apple “doesn’t care bout them”.

The specifics about the specs

Pros do care about specs — not in the way mobile phone nerds enthusiasts care about specs, but because a small difference in specs can mean the difference in hours or days when you’re dealing with pro media, especially high-definition video.

And not just hardware specs. Software features matter. Multi-cam? XML? Going from machine to machine, app to app, being able to find what I need? I bought THIS monitor for THESE reasons (read: THESE specs); will my editing software work with it? Other companies who have constantly tried (and frequently succeeded) to out-spec Apple know and understand this and, in the wake of Apple’s bumbling of FCPX, are doing everything they can to win back formerly loyal customers.

Specs for the pro user are about two things (other than the obvious quality): flexibility and time.

At the release of FCPX, there were workarounds for many of these issues, plugins for others. Some of us were just SOL with some of the things we needed. Overall, inflexible and time consuming.

FCPX 10.0.3 or FCP7?

But a lot of that is moot now. FCPX 10.0.3 has the specs, which get at most of the core of the flexibility issues. And most workarounds have been scrapped for actual, built-in features (great concept, Apple!).

That, and a lot of third party companies are meeting the needs of professionals that were left in the wake of FCPX’s new “strengths”. The new 7toX tool lets you finally import your FCP7 projects into FCPX (get it now for $9.99 on the Mac App Store with the link below). And the Blackmagic Design kit allows broadcast monitoring. The X2Pro utility will send your edit to ProTools, bringing FCPX back into the professional post pipeline. These concerns were certainly among the biggest.

FCPX now has everything necessary in an editing application for me — not for everybody, probably, but for me.

Yet, tomorrow, when that client calls needing something edited by early next week, I’ll reach for my iMac and pull up FCP7.Why? Time. The UI and approach are so drastically different in FCPX, I just haven’t had time to get it under my fingers yet.

So much in FCP7 is second-nature to me. During long editing sessions, I often find myself tapping out Shift-Command-A, Command-S while eating lunch to make sure my food doesn’t suddenly disappear from my table. It’s muscle memory. We’re talking about literal biological neuropathways wired into my brain after regularly using an application that’s barely changed in ten years. My brain physically cannot understand the new program. It’s going to take some re-wiring. Possible, but surpassingly inconvenient at best.

The “new haircut”

FCP desperately needed a facelift — more than a facelift: an overhaul. But as I mentioned in my first thoughts on this subject:

So I was wrong about it not being like iMovie, but dead on about the consequences of doing so.

Apple and the OS success

I think Apple’s mistake was in approaching this as an app redesign (like the new iMovie) without realizing that for professionals, FCP is as crucial to their Mac as OS X or QuickTime. If any piece is out of order, the whole system is useless, and a crisis is on our hands. Many of us have more than one machine for precicely that reason. We keep one machine with the oldest, most solid setup in case the new shiny takes a big dump on our workload.

Not that anyone’s asking me, but I think Apple would have been much wiser to have approached FCP like an operating system. There were no doubt a lot of frustrated people with every iteration of OS X as different features and specs were end-of-life’d. But it seems that in most instances, Apple left some options open for people to give them (users, developers) time to adapt — Classic and Rosetta being examples.

OS X has been (and continues to be) wildly successful — so successful, in fact, that the OS X strategy is perhaps the most vital “spec” of the iPhone and iPad, even more so than the OS X kernel itself.

I’ve suggested here and there that Apple should approach the cloud from an operating system standpoint, rather than an app standpoint. They seem to kinda be doing that, and it seems to kinda be working.

By not sticking with what they know best, Apple released an amazing editing application redesigned from the ground up — with no bridges back to the existing (not past… present) version, existing projects, existing workflows. This has alienated a lot of users — users like me that see Final Cut as the operating system for their business.

And even with the updates — calling it 10.0.3 and not 10.3 — it’s as if Apple is saying, “Yeah, these things aren’t really important to us.”

The future

I might as well cut and paste from previous articles for this part.

FCPX is the best editing application I’ve ever used, and with major updates released on a faster schedule than promised, the glimmer of hope at the end of the tunnel is starting to look less and less like an oncoming locomotive.

Just over six months out from the intial release, many users have not transitioned to anything new yet. I think anyone that has waited was wise to do so, as it is my opinion that, if you have to learn something new anyway, learning FCPX is much less time-consuming (and less expensive) than completely overhauling your post machines.

The naked truth

Which brings me back to the nudity. Will FCPX ever shake the “naked lunatic,” desperate ex-girlfriend vibe? Well, many ex-girlfriends find new mates (believe me), and many naked lunatics move on to new towns (believe m– i mean, look, a deer!).

Beginning with 10.0.3, Apple will start building a whole new user base of Final Cut Pro users. If the user base even has to rebuilt from the students up, it will survive. I suspect it will continue to grow and reclaim its prominence as the industry-standard editing app. It’s just a shame FCPX set back Apple’s lead, undoing ten years of steady growth.

Guess I better break out those training videos if I want to keep up with the kiddos…

PS – Don’t forget that Apple has a 30-day free trial available at http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/trial.

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The results may not be what you would expect:

The study ran from December 1st through until December 15th, and shows that iOS isn’t as stable as its Android counterpart. There are some points of note, however, that should be discussed further in the future when talking about the stability of iOS and Android applications. First, iOS 5.01 was responsible for 28.64 percent of all crashes in the study. It’s not uncommon for applications on a new operating system to become unstable once a major new OS is released. That being said, iOS 4.2.1, and iOS 5.0 are both responsible for over 4 percent of all crashes, and iOS 4.1 weighed in at 8.24 percent of all crashes in the Critterrcism study.

Some thoughts

While the study provides some interesting insights into app crashes in both Android and iOS, it’s hard to put any weight in the results, and more importantly, it’s impossible to point a finger at which company, Apple or Google, should bear the brunt of the blame. There are just too many variables. First, of all the crashes, how many cases involved applications that weren’t updated to support new OS versions? Second, how many cases involved applications optimized for newer OS versions, but run on legacy hardware? We don’t have access to that information, and it’s that information that’s going to tell the whole story here.

The study does shed light on one thing very accurately, however. App Stores, while still in their infancy, need better mechanisms for weeding out applications that are no longer supported, and further, provide better information on what versions of an operating system an application supports. As a user, when I get a new phone, I’m heading directly to the App Store to download all of my favourite applications, and at no point am I considering whether the application has been optimized for my new handset yet. As a user, all I see is one of my favourite applications crashing a lot. That’s a huge problem for the majority of consumers.

Read Do iOS Apps Crash More Than Android Apps? A Data Dive on Forbes.

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In a bit of a twist, Datacolor is not calibrating the display on your iOS device like you would expect; instead, the Spyder calibrating tool determines the color profile of your iOS device, and then color corrects your photos using the SpyderGallery application. A Spyder device is required for the color correction, so if you don’t have one, you’ll have to purchase one.

It’s an interesting solution to the lack of display calibration granularity available in iOS. Given the possibilities of using the iPad as a portfolio viewing medium for photographers, designers, and artists, it’s a little disappointing that the iPad display can’t be color calibrated.

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It’s Friday, and that means it’s time to take a look at some awesome apps for each platform: iPhone, iPad, and Mac OS. Today, we’re focusing on video content and productivity.

Ready? Let’s begin.

iPhone/iPod touch:

Wunderkit: This past Wednesday, 6Wunderkinder announced the public beta of Wunderkit – a new way to organize your life. Think Wunderlist, but bigger and better. The web based app lets you organize tasks into lists, share them with your group, and get a real-time collaborative operation going. Not to mention, grouping these individual projects is as simple as creating a workspace. The iPhone app doesn’t strip any of the core functionalities away either. Rather, it simply makes them work for your 4:3 screen. Not to mention, the notifications keeps you up to date with what’s going on. However, I’d advise turing off the app’s notifications if you’d – you know – like to really get away from work.

Get the download link below

iPad:

Showyou: This groundbreaking video collection app has been featured before, but v3.0 of Showyou was released today and with it, a ton of new features: User grids, zoom in to social network grids, browsing by category, hashtag grids, new tray for navigation, and dozens of more improvements both “small and large.” Find videos suggested by your social contacts and share them with friends. It’s that simple.

Get the download link below

Mac:

Yes, Wunderkit again: If you’re not all about the GTD (get things done) initiative, then you might find this repetition a bit odd. However, if you’re anything like me and enjoy finding new ways of avoiding balding, stress or grey hairs, you’ll understand. The app goes fullscreen and makes the social platform built on top of Wunderkit all the more fun. However, don’t think of this productivity tool as just all work and no play. There are a few funny “workspaces” set up where you’re bound to get a good laugh. Search for yourself!

Well, that’s it for this week folks! Like the apps we mentioned? Share the post with your friends. Have any suggestions? Email me at jerondu@macgasm.net or ping me @jarederondu and I’ll check them out. Until next Friday, have a great weekend.

Macgasm - Apple Tips, Apple News, Apple Everything.

Interesting, right? However, in some shots on Apple’s site we see 9:41. Maybe there are some discrepancies on the seconds? Nevertheless, this just goes to show that the Apple boys are really in touch with their roots.

Via: BusinessInsider

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This mimics Avid’s “big boy” competition in the world of fully-fledged professional post software on the desktop. Since the release of FCPX, many editors have gone back to their Avid roots with programs like Avid’s Media Composer.

The goal here is clear: show existing Apple customers how great Avid’s products are, and hope they’ll flock to their more expensive products. And I have to say, as someone who has kind of stood in defense of FCPX, Avid has made a pretty good case. The only drawback with this strategy is that Avid’s companion, Avid Studio for desktop, is for the PC. While this little app is amazing on the iPad (and blows iMovie away in a number of areas), it’s a far leap to Media Composer from here.

Avid Studio

The touch interface is super-simple to pick up and use — very understandable and explorable. An HTML-y, Avid-esque looking, sparse help document is included, but I found it easier to just explore — the mark of a well-designed app. It’s super pretty, too.

The interface

On the left is the media library, which Avid builds by scouring your device for photos, videos, and music. More than just the standard camera roll access, it also includes transitions, motion effects (with drag and drop asset placeholders à la Motion — kinda mindblowing on the iPad), cinema style sound effects, and text elements.

My only beef with the library is every time you add music, photos, or video to your device, Avid wants to rebuild the library, which takes a few minutes, even for small changes.On the right is a preview window showing either the media element you’re looking at or the edit from your timeline, depending on what’s currently selected.

Avid Studio features a timeline like iMovie for iOS, but with three audio tracks (not including the audio associated with any video clips). This means you can have four audio tracks playing simultaneously — great for music, sound effects, music transitions/editing, etc.

Also with the timeline is a Storyboard track that shows your clips in equal-sized squares. I guess that’s useful for when you’re zoomed in on the timeline; timeline zooms in and out with pinch, but Storyboard doesn’t. The Storyboard track also allows you to drop one clip on another, either replacing it or compositing it with a picture-in-picture effect.

Editing

While editing, in and outs felt a little clunky at first. The inclusion of a razor tool makes fine edits a lot easier. This is a huge plus over iMovie for iPad, where I’ve found it pretty much impossible to make even simple edits to music.

The preview window allows you to set defined in and out points in your library clips before dragging them to the timeline. A precision trimming window gives you a dual-up display, showing you the clips on either side of the cut you’re tweaking.

Each video clip has individual volume controls including fade in and fade out settings. Also each clip has setting for fitting non-widescreen media into Avid Studio’s default 16:9 aspect ratio — pillarbox, crop, or stretch.

Still images are basically treated as video clips. Settings allow you to do manual Ken-Burns-style effects. All video can be played back full screen. When my iPad was connected to my Airport Express, it played the audio in sync with my screen through my stereo speakers. I’d be interested to see if video would play to an external monitor as well as over an Apple TV. If so, kinda mind-blowing.

I thought it was really cool that I could bring in footage from my iPad, iPhone, and iPod version of a 4:3 SD clip from something I edited a few years ago, a still image, and imported 1080HD clips from a Canon 5D all in one timeline. It played pretty smoothly, only giving rendering notices on the montage motion graphic and the still image. (Rendering lets the iPad process complex graphics or motion images for real-time playback.)

Sharing

When you’re done, export to the camera roll (as 480p, 540p, or 720p), email, Facebook, YouTube, or to iTunes or iCloud as an Avid Studio (PC) project, though I’m curious how one would retrieve a file from iCloud on the PC.

Conclusion

This tasty little app at this tiny price-point may go a long way to convincing Apple users that Avid cares about editors. It should at least cause some of the most die-hard FCP users to look at Media Composer as an alternative to their FCPX frustrations.

Avid was long the reigning champ for film post-production, and still holds a huge stronghold on the post market. This awesome little app shows that Avid is up for the tussle, and they’re not going away any time soon.

Grab it today at the link below before the end of the month to take advantage of the introductory price.

Via: WSJ

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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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So, basically the game is a continuous side-scroller with obstacles that you have to avoid and junk that you should collect —  pretty straightforward and standard for this type of game. The challenge, I think, is in the control mechanics. In order to avoid crashing into obstacles or to collect bananas and power-ups, you have to combine perfectly timed swipes and taps with using the accelerometer practically simultaneously. Although crashing into obstacles won’t result in an instant fail (unless you take too long to recover and the scrolling screen gets you), it does slow your gorilla down. And when you’re nearing the end of these impossibly long levels, it gets to be a pain in the ass.

It’s kind of one of those games that, if you’re like me and enjoy a challenge, you’ll probably love it. However, I can see how some people might become easily frustrated with it before they’ve had time to master it.

Aside from the tricky gameplay and controls, Gorilla Gondola has some other more redeeming qualities. From an artsy standpoint, the game is really well designed and features some gorgeous background scenery. Also, the music is a freaky fusion between 80s synth and the jungle tunes from Donkey Kong Country, but it’s awesome. YES, IT IS.

If you can get past the wonky control mechanics, or if you sincerely enjoy a challenge, I definitely recommend spending the $1.99 for Gorilla Gondola. It’s fresh, it’s fun, and there’s enough content in the game to keep you entertained for a while. Go check it out.

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In order to get the entire benefit from the tweak, you’ll need to install another tweak that lets you put more applications in your dock than normal. We recommend checking out Chpwn’s Infinidock to get that done.

Pick it up on the Cydia Store

Via: Cult of Mac

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iBoot, a dev and debug tool, was used to output some details about the iPad 3. From what they got, BGR concluded the following:

• The model numbers are J1 and J2, Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi + embedded GSM/CDMA/LTE support for all carriers.
• An A6 processor with model number S5L8945X.
• New processor will be a quad-core model, which we reported on last week.

So what do you think? Bogus? Or is this the real deal? I bet you can tell what we’re thinking.

Via: BGR

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The Main Screen

When you first open Paprika, you’ll see the following screen:

The left column allows you to choose between the four main views in Paprika: Recipes, the Browser, Groceries, and Meals. Each of these views will be discussed below. The second column lists all your recipe categories (and you can create as many as you like). And the third column lists all your recipes in alphabetical order. You can filter your recipes by Most Recent, Favorites, and Uncategorized or by Categories. You can also search your recipes by name, ingredient, or source in the search field. On the lower right, you’ll see the gear button for settings. In settings, you can set your home browser page, a default email recipient address, the font size for your recipes, and whether or not you want your categories to be organized alphabetically. Settings is also where you can set up your cloud sync to synchronize Paprika between your Mac, iPhone, and/or iPad. Cloud syncing is free, but you do need to set up an account through Paprika.

Individual Recipe View

When you click on the name of a recipe, your screen will look like this.

The individual recipe view displays a photograph (if the recipe included one) and information, such as, prep time, cook time, difficulty, source, and servings.You can rate the recipe (one to five stars). One really cool option is the “scale” button. Click on this and Paprika will automatically scale the recipe according to your specifications. So, you can double or halve or three-quarter the recipe and all the ingredient measurements will be scaled accordingly. To make changes to the recipe simply click the edit button. Click on the heart to add the recipe to your favorites. Click on the grocery cart to add the ingredients for the recipe to your grocery list, and you can uncheck any items you already have on hand. If you want to add the recipe to your meal plan, click on the calendar icon. You can select the date and the meal (breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack). You can also email, print, or delete the recipe.

Browser View

Paprika contains its own browser so you can search for recipes from within the app. The default page in the browser is Google, but you can change that in the settings. Click on the bookmark icon and you’ll discover that the developers have already provided you with a list of recipe sources that are compatible with Paprika. You can, of course, add your own bookmarks.

Once you’re on a recipe site and you’ve chosen a recipe, simply click the “Save Recipe” button on the upper right and watch as it is magically downloaded straight into the app – photograph and all. This is what makes Paprika one of the best recipe managers available. Click “done” and the recipe is in your database ready to be used. Plus, its source is recorded so you can always go back to the original page where you found the recipe.

If you find a recipe on a site that isn’t yet supported by Paprika, you can still save the recipe. You’ll know the site is incompatible if, when you hit “Save Recipe,” you get a pop-up window with an error message.

Saving the recipe is still simple. All you have to do is highlight each element (name, ingredients, directions, etc.) and click the appropriate button at the bottom of the window. You can also drag the photo into Paprika. Click done and the recipe is added.

Manually adding a recipe. Just highlight and click.

Grocery View

If you’ve added any recipes using the grocery cart icon in the recipe view, they will appear in the left column in Grocery View. All the items on your list appear in categories, and you can delete any items by clicking on them and hitting the minus button in the upper right-hand corner. You can easily add all your other grocery items by clicking on the plus button and typing them in. I was pleasantly surprised that when I added “cat litter” to my list, Paprika automatically categorized it in Pet Products. Unfortunately, I saw no way to edit grocery store categories, add categories, or edit the categories items were placed in. Once you’ve completed your list, you can email it, print it, or sync it to your iPhone/iPad.

Meal Planner View

In the Meal Planner view, you can plan a week (or more) of meals. Click the plus button and a pop up menu appears. You can type in the name of a custom meal (i.e. one that isn’t in your Paprika database) or click on the “Recipes” button to choose a recipe within Paprika. Using the meal chooser button, determine whether the recipe is for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or snack, choose a date and you’re done. From the Meal Planner you can add a week’s worth (or more) of recipes to your grocery list.

Other Features

Sync. If you own the iPhone and/or iPad versions of Paprika, you can sign up for the sync service for free. All your recipes, grocery lists, and meal plans will be synced flawlessly between your devices.

Backup. Paprika for Mac allows you to create backup files of your recipe database. Simply click on File>backup and choose where you want your backup to be stored (I put mine in Dropbox). That way, if anything ever happens to your database, you can restore from the backup.

Import. Paprika allows you to import recipes from MacGourmet, YummySoup, MasterCook, or via plain text YAML format. I imported several recipes from my MacGourmet database without any problems.

Bookmarklet. The bookmarklet Paprika provides for Mac and your iOS devices is simply genius. Add it to your web browser and when you’re on a recipe site that Paprika supports, all you have to do is click the bookmarklet to download the recipe. The next time you open Paprika, it’s there. This is a work of magic, if you ask me.

Saving a Recipe Using the Bookmarklet

What’s Macgasmic

The best word I can come up with to describe Paprika for Mac is “Magical.” It really is. Every time I import a recipe with the touch of a button, I stupidly say, “Wow!” Every. Time. The bookmarklet makes me especially happy because I can peruse recipes on almost any website, and click the bookmarklet to save them without even having to open Paprika. When I use Paprika on my iPad, everything is synced and ready to go. Let me put it bluntly: if you cook and you own a Mac, you need to buy Paprika.

What’s Not

There’s not much to dislike about Paprika for Mac. I did discover that it only supports Apple Mail for emailing recipes. That’s disappointing, since I use Sparrow. The other thing that might be off-putting is the fact that the iPhone and iPad apps are not universal, so you have to pay $5 for each one.

Paprika is an effective and well-designed recipe manager. I recommend it without hesitation. My only wish for future updates is that the developers make it so that Paprika buys the groceries on the lists it creates and then cooks the meal for me. I don’t think that’s asking too much, do you?

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All Things D is reporting that Path has managed to grow to 2 million users in just the two months since its relaunch. The path to one million took a full year, but growing from one million to two million took all of two months. Clearly Path is doing something right.

From All Things D:

As time goes on, I find myself wanting less of what Twitter and Facebook are offering, and more of what Path offers in a social network. Twitter is undoubtably great at reaching out and finding interesting new people to follow and interact with, but it doesn’t do a very good job of connecting me with people I know, and allowing me to interact with them in a personal, face-to-face social setting. Path limits you to only 200 followers, and forces you to really question whether or not people are worth following before you hit the follow button. Personally, if I’ve met you in real life, there’s a good chance I’ll follow you on Path. I use it in a different, more personal way than I do networks like Twitter and Facebook.

For some reason I have no problem sharing photos of my newborn daughter on Path, but avoid it at all costs with Twitter and Facebook, and that speaks volumes about the interactions I have with the people on Path versus other networks.

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Do you want to be a photographer or just play one on the web? Here’s your chance! Join Macgasm’s Flickr group and upload all your beauty shots of your Apple gear. Each week we select one lucky participant to be featured on Flickr Find Friday. Go join our Flickr Group now. Get creative. Upload up to 7 pics a day. Tune in on Fridays (like you ever miss a post, right?) and see if you have what it takes to be featured. Good luck and happy snapping.

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Apple seems to always be on the lookout for a new industry to infiltrate. Its latest foray has been the education industry with the release of iBooks 2 and iBooks Author. Now, it seems that the Cupertino boys want to turn couch potatoes into 5K runners. According to AppleInsider:

Naturally, such a thought would come from a patent, right? A patent filing from only three months ago outlines the technology which seems to be built on the existing Nike+ iPod system. Except this time, there would be real-time sharing. Imagine for a second, a notification during Cut the Rope saying your wife just ran 5 miles. What would you do? Apple gives an instance in which two people, in competition with each other, are working out on treadmills. Their iOS devices are wirelessly synced together and they can view each other’s current pace, distance, calories burned, heart rate, blood pressure, and even blood oxygen levels:

Apple goes on to note that such a concept can also be applied to elliptical steppers, stationary bicycles, weight machines, or even actual bikes. Of course, there would be other benefits to such an update including hands-free workout data uploads. After all, the tedious process that turns some away from Nike + iPod is the step of having to manually input your workout after you’ve done it. Ironic, right? Working out… using your fingers.

Nevertheless, this shows that Apple is always thinking ahead. Just ponder over the idea of head-to-head competitions via your iOS device. Creative, right?

Via: AppleInsider

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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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Strange events … umm, WT actual F

Macotakara is saying that Apple’s going to hold a “strange” event in February that may be similar to the iBooks 2 and iBooks Author announcement that took place in January. There’s no mention of what will be announced, or even where or when the announcement will take place, just a mention of “strange” and February. Take that one for what it’s worth, because we’re still trying to figure out how “strange” plays into this whole rumor.

The iPad 3

In addition to the “strange” rumor, Macotakara (english) is also indicating that the iPad 3 will be announced in March. Which is great, because Bloomberg actually reported that on January 13, 2012. Traditionally, iPads have been released in the spring, and March foots the bill here. So the real question here is … Who wants to buy my iPad 2?

On the next-generation iPhone

This next rumor is a little hard to stomach. According to Digitimes, who has a track record worse than most other rumor blogs, the iPhone 5 is going to be released at WWDC in June, despite the iPhone 4S being on the market for just 8 months leading up to that point. Up until the 4S, Apple would release a new iPhone every single summer, but the 4S announcement slid into the fall. Digitimes is suggesting that we’re heading back to a summer release schedule, with two iOS devices being released within months of each other (March for the iPad, and June for the iPhone).

Wait, no iOS rumors?

If anything, Digitimes should be rumouring about WWDC and an iOS 6 preview. WWDC is where the next iOS often gets shown to developers. But nope, Chuck Testa iPhone 5 rumors.

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That’s three fairly large talent acquisitions from the gaming industry over the last year. Not too shabby for a company that didn’t seem to have an interest in getting into the video game market when the iPhone first launched, and instead fell backwards into it with the creation of iOS.

According to a report from Flurry back in November 2011, iOS and Android now account for 58 percent of portable gaming revenue in the U.S. That’s huge considering Apple and Google have only really been in the gaming market for a couple of years compared to the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP.

It gets worse for Nintendo:

Apple may have inadvertently stumbled into the gaming market, but you can be sure that the company is now doing its best to maintain dominance in the market.

Source: MCV

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Ticket to Ride Pocket, the iPhone version of Days of Wonder‘s award winning train board game, is getting a major update with the focus on multiplayer. Yes, finally, you can play against your friends across the world. The new Multi Mode uses GameCenter to find friends to play against, and each Multi Mode game can have up to four of your friends in it. What’s more, you can play multiple games simultaneously against multiple sets of friends. This mode also supports asynchronous gameplay, so you can switch from game to game, or even to another app without losing your progress.

“This is the update Ticket to Ride players have been clamoring for since we released Ticket to Ride Pocket,” said Eric Hautemont, Days of Wonder Founder and CEO in a press release. “We love online gameplay, but faced a challenge: how do you create a great online experience on a device like the phone that is constantly being used for other functions? We needed to build an experience where players could come and go as they please yet have something meaningful to do when they played; the thought of having multiple games going at once was what convinced us this could work. With Multi Mode, we’ve given players what they want without compromising on the gameplay that made Ticket to Ride so popular to begin with.”

In addition to Multi Mode, the local multiplayer mode has been improved as well, allowing players to play against each other when connected via bluetooth or Wi-Fi, using any combination of iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. This release also updates the iPad version of the game to include the improved local mode.

If you’d rather play on your own, the game still offers Solo mode with 4 AI personalities, 20 unique achievements and 3 leader boards just for solo players.

I have to say, I’m a big Ticket to Ride fan, and this update brings it to a whole other level. A multiplayer level. If you want to play, hit me up on GameCenter, I’m yougenius.

Whooo whooo!

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