December 20, 2012

Toby Wellington

Safari Browser Was Almost Called ‘Freedom’ Or ‘Alexander’

Retired Apple programmer Don Melton posted a fascinating anecdote on his blog yesterday recalling his memories of the naming process for Apple’s web browser Safari. It’s a great read that also provides an interesting glimpse of the Apple creative process. While Melton doesn’t know how the name Safari ended up being chosen, he was part of the discussion for a number of other potential names such as iBrowse, Alexander and Freedom. ” To this day, I don’t know who suggested the name “Safari.” I wasn’t in the room when the heavens split asunder and angels sounded forth as a choir singing that three-syllable benediction.”

Melton explains of a design meeting where the topic of naming the web browser first came up.
“As I remember, Steve just started saying some names out loud — I suppose trying them out to see how they felt in his mouth and to his ears. Which is not as odd as it seemed then — it’s a good technique now that I think about it.

“I don’t recall all the names, but one that stands out is “Freedom.” Steve spent some time trying that one out on all of us. He may have liked it because it invoked positive imagery of people being set free. And, just as possible and positive, it spoke to our own freedom from Microsoft and Internet Explorer, the company and browser we depended on at the time.”

Read the full blog post here, it’s definitely worth your time.

December 20, 2012

Toby Wellington

Four Armed Robbers Tracked Down Thanks To iPhone

Four armed robbers were tracked down and arrested in Springfield, Mass. Wednesday night thanks to a stolen iPhone. The four masked robbers entered into the Ambis convenience store wearing masks and carrying guns. The robbers took money, cigarettes, a laptop and regrettably, an iPhone.

The iPhone, which probably belonged to the cashier or a customer, had a GPS app on it (likely Find My iPhone) that allowed for police to quickly track where the criminals were located. Police found the robbers cooped up in a house half a mile from the store and promptly arrested them. One of the four attempted to escape out the backdoor however was stopped by state police dogs.

22 year old Jennifer Brown, 26 year old Jonathan Lopez, 20 year old Misael Lebron and 22 year old Kyle Randolph now face armed robbery and various other weapons charges.

Pro-tip to criminals: iPhones have a power button.

December 20, 2012

Toby Wellington

Samsung To Be Charged With Breaking European Anti-Trust Laws Following Investigation

Just a few days after hearing the U.S. judge’s decision denying Apple’s attempt to ban various Samsung devices, Samsung has received some bad legal news over in Europe. The European Commision has stated that they are set to charge Samsung with violating EU competition rules and anti-trust laws for having filed lawsuits against Apple. This announcement comes two days following Samsung’s decision to “drop its lawsuits against Apple for standards-essential patent infringement in Germany, the U.K., France, Italy and the Netherlands.”

Standard-essential patents are essentially patents that are required in the creation of any one piece of technology. For example, if Samsung patented something that became essential to have in every cellphone, this would be a standard-essential patent. Samsung is then forced to license out these patents under fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms.

Samsung had launched a number of lawsuits against Apple and other companies for infringing on their standard-essential patents. After doing so however, the European Commision opened an investigation into Samsung as to whether the licensing agreements they had setup for these standard-essential patents were actually “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory.”

Pressure from this investigation is likely what led Samsung to drop all of its standard-essential patent lawsuits two days ago. However, Samsung gave another reason for why it was deciding to drop the pending lawsuits: “We strongly believe it is better when companies compete fairly in the marketplace, rather than in court,” stated a Samsung spokesperson. Yeah, okay.

“We will issue a statement of objections very soon,” said European Union competition chief Joaquin Almunia. More news on this should come out in the coming days, however things don’t look too good for the South Korean tech giant.

December 20, 2012

Kaylie Moise

Mobile How-To Guide App, Snapguide, Is Coming To iPad

Snapguide’s iPhone app first launched in March and has since become quite a hit. It’s now up to about one million active users and, in all, there are “tens of thousands” of quick and easy how-to guides uploaded to the service so far. After its success on the iPhone, Snapguide is now coming to the bigger iPad screen.

Snapguide first came about because creator Daniel Raffel just wanted to share a tricky sourdough recipe with a few friends. The app has always been mobile first and the idea was to use the iPhone’s high-quality camera to take a few pictures of your steps of your activity, add some instructions, and upload it to the site from anywhere. Now, the team at Heavy Bits, which makes Snapguide, wants to broaden its user base by bringing it to the iPad.

Raffel said, “The iPhone is probably more natural [for uploading guides], but for consumption, the iPad is a bit better. For us, we want people to create content regardless of platform.”

Snapguide isn’t just popular with users. Apple has heavily featured it in the App Store as well. Raffel said he doesn’t want it to be just for iOS though, and hopes to bring it to Android someday and become a resource for those on the web.

You can get Snapguide for free today in the App Store.

Image Credit: Wired

December 20, 2012

Joshua Schnell

Deal: Get A Step-By-Step Guide To Creating A Mobile App For Only $29

Creating a mobile app involves more than just a little coding. There are a lot of small details that you need to take care of to make sure your app functions well and to get it into the App Store. That’s why this step-by-step guide to app development is so handy. It walks you through identifying key features of your app, finding the right development and marketing talent, keeping your developers on time and on budgets and then getting your app into the App Store. Normally this guide would cost you $59, but for a limited time only you can get it for only $29. You can pick up the guide here.

December 20, 2012

Kaylie Moise

Australian University To Give Out 11,000 iPads To Staff And New Students

Starting in January, all new students who enroll at the University of Western Sydney in Australia, as well as the academic staff, will be given an iPad.  The purpose is to make the learning experience more dynamic and effective.

Professor Kerri-Lee Krause, the university’s pro vice-chancellor, said, “With digital technology revolutionizing how we connect and interact with the world, university should be no different.” The rollout of 11,000 iPads is to support learning and teaching innovations across the curriculum and in informal learning environments.”

Education is quickly becoming a major market for tablet sales. Apple is, once again, competing head to head with Samsung in this arena. Apple has been promoting its iBooks Author software for creating digital textbooks and other curriculum material.

Krause said this iPad initiative is part of a comprehensive curriculum renewal strategy at UWS, which also includes more flexible study options for students and a blended learning model for all UWS degrees starting in 2013. She said:

“Over the next couple of years UWS will challenge some of the traditional lecture-style presentations by including more of the interactive learning that students value so much.

Mobile technologies will be a key part of this strategy. We want to support our academic staff to make the most of iPads and custom-designed apps in class so that, even in the largest lecture theatre, students have access to just-for-me, just-in-time interactive learning experiences.”

Incorporating iPads, or tablets in general, into the classroom is a great way to bring learning into the new era of technology and more schools should do what USW is doing. Earlier this fall, a middle school in Sydney required parents to purchase iPads for students in grades 7 through 10. Australian schools’ inclusion of iPads comes not long after Apple launched the volume purchase program, which allows bulk purchases of apps with savings of up to 20% if bought in large quantities.

December 20, 2012

Kaylie Moise

Amazon’s IMDb iPad App Gets Completely Redesigned

IMDb, the movie database company owned by Amazon, has just updated its iPad app, giving it a completely new design with a new look and feel that shows more movies, TV shows, and celebrities than ever before. The update gives IMDb a whole new user interface, improved navigation and personalized features.

The homepage of the app now lists more movies than before. It uses a horizontal scroller to list new and popular trailers and movies that are coming soon, which matches them to your location, film news, celebrity birthdays, theater listings, popular TV shows and featured photo galleries.

Users can sign in to the app to get personalized movie and TV recommendations. When you tap the + sign on the top of each movie and TV show poster it gets added to your Watchlist. The Watchlist has a new full-page that lets you order and edit and sort the films or shows you want to watch, which is in order of release date by default.

A Top 250 rank has been added to movie pages. The IMDb logo at the top of each page acts as a menu selector which opens a menu drawer so you can select different items from your profile and other information that is relevant for you. It is a sort of navigation tool that provides you with menu choices at any point within the app.

The iPad app has received the most attention, but Amazon also added a few updates for IMDb for iPhone. With both the iPad and the iPhone, you can share using Facebook functionality built into iOS. Information about TV episodes also lists a person’s filmography and you can select and browse image galleries by tapping a photo or a poster at any point in the app.

If you haven’t already, you may want to update your app (or download it if you haven’t yet). It’s a free download and update from the App Store.

Image Credit:

December 20, 2012

Andrew Kunesh

EA Launches Major Holiday Sale On The App Store

Electronic Arts has just launched its yearly holiday sale on the iTunes App Store. The company has marked down the prices of its entire library of over 100 iOS games to  $0.99. This library includes Need for Speed: Most Wanted, and the entire Tiger Woods lineup amongst other popular titles. Most of these games normally retail for $2.99 or higher, so it’s worth purchasing a few games now if you see something you like.

This isn’t the only amazing sale we’ve found on the App Store either. The popular to-do list app Clear, the strategy game Bloons TD 5, and the amazing camera app Camera+ have all dropped to $0.99 in the App Store amongst others. Other sales are likely to start soon to grab the attention of people who receive an iOS device for Christmas.

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