New Apple TV Unveiled - Features And Specifications Walkthrough

Twitter for iPad Offers a Fresh New Interface

Tonight Twitter released a new update to their popular Twitter application that makes it a Universal app with native support for the iPad's large display. While native support has been a long requested feature for the native Twitter app, the company...

Official Twitter for iPad hits App Store

The official Twitter for iPad — technically a universal binary now for both iPhone and iPad — has just hit the iTunes App Store. Formerly known as Tweetie, the app was under development by Atebits and Loren Brichter before getting bought up by Twitter, and after a brief transitional delay, it’s finally here.

How is it? Different. Stacked. Brichter certainly didn’t simply scale up the Twitter for iPhone UI. This is all new in both look and approach. I’m going to try it out for a while before forming any opinions (hit me up @reneritchie if you want to try it with me) but take a look at the screenshots below for an idea.

If you’re trying it already, let me know your thoughts.

[Engadget]

Official Twitter for iPad hits App Store is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Apple special music event – what we didn’t get

What didn’t we get from Apple during their 2010 special music event? The iPod touch line got an extremely decent refresh, as well as the Nano.   iPhone is getting iOS 4.1 next week with some newly added features and some much needed bug fixes. The iPad will be getting iOS 4.2 – in November, but I’m sure some of us would have liked to see it sooner. And we got an overhauled iTunes. I personally wasn’t expecting a whole new iTunes, so that was the surprise of the day for me. AppleTV was pretty underwhelming in my book (as well as Rene’s).  Click through to see what us here at TiPb would have liked to see and let us know in the comments what you would have liked that just didn’t make the cut this time.

iPhone

iPhone will be getting iOS 4.1 next week. Along with general bug fixes (proximity issues anyone?), you’ll get Game Center and some welcome additions to the camera. I know I wasn’t the only staff member excited by the edition of HDR to the camera, but I would have liked to see maybe some contrast and saturation settings added. I’ve especially noticed it on the iPhone 4, but sometimes pictures in low light settings come out a little too warm (yellow-ish) in my opinion. It would be nice to be able to tweak some settings. Game Center is a welcome addition, but I’m not crazy about the whole carnival-esque layout. I much preferred the original layout from the original 4.0 betas.  I wasn’t expecting too much in the way of iPhone.  There were rumors flying around of a new iPhone, but I think we all know better than that around these parts.  Apple is predictable.  As long as their current business model works, I don’t see them changing that pattern.

iPad

The iPad will have to wait for November for iOS 4.2 – next week would have been nice. Why the hold up? El Jobso really didn’t have a lot to say about the iPad at the event. He seemed a bit rushed. Deep down, I was really hoping to hear about a potential iPad refresh, but I figured that wouldn’t happen until January or so. Did you guys expect anything iPad wise that you didn’t get?

iPods

As far as iPods go, I really have nothing to complain about. I think the shuffle combines the best of both previous generations now. The Nano now has a touchscreen! It contains everything the previous generations had, but aligns better with its sibling product lines. Chad noticed the absence of video on the Nano. I don’t really know if that would both me personally, as I wouldn’t want to watch movies or video on that tiny little screen. To me, this is simply Apple positioning themselves in the market. If you want an iPod with video, you’ll have to step up to the iPod touch now. Makes good business sense to me. Only peeve I have with the new iPod line at the current moment is the back material on the Touch. For the love of everything Jobs, PLEASE pick a better finish that doesn’t scratch when you set it on a pillow? That chrome is just screaming “Scratch me!” How about a frosted material next time guys?

iTunes

iTunes 10! This was the one thing I was somewhat excited about today. I don’t get too excited about iPods since I have an iPhone, so I really have no need for one. Ping sounds like a good concept, but we’ll see if it will catch on. I also like the idea of top 10 lists created by your friends, but you’ll also have to be selective about what friends you have on there. I have friends who listen to death metal, and I don’t want that in my top 10 suggestions lists. To me, that doesn’t sound very intuitive. Some people would have liked to see cloud-based syncing or some version of iTunes in the cloud. We previously speculated that this was why Apple acquired LaLa. Maybe not?  I would have liked to see some more intuitive ways to organize content.  I love coverflow and sometimes even if you group albums the same, you see duplicates in different views.  More than anything, I wanted to see more fine tuned controls.  If anyone sees anything new in iTunes 10 as far as organization I haven’t found yet, let us know in the comments.

Apple TV

I pretty much have the same feeling’s Rene does on this one, so we’ll let him take it from there. But if you’d like to rant or tell us your thoughts, let us know in the comments. Needless to say, I’ll probably be getting one. That may sound odd, but I didn’t have the first generation, or any generation AppleTV. At $99, I can stream all my movies from my iMac to the TV and stop fiddling with burning DVDs or hooking up an output device. And iTunes rentals are cheaper than rentals from Comcast. I’ve been waiting to pull the trigger on a new media device for our living room as we’ve been putting it off forever. I’d still have liked to see a LOT more features than what we got. Anyone else picking one up?

I also would have liked to see an update to MobileMe or something along the lines of adding new features.  Streaming would have been nice or the ability to store books or music wirelessly to your MobileMe iDisk.  Other than that, I didn’t expect that many “One more things”.

That about wraps it up, let us know all your thoughts in the comments!

Apple special music event – what we didn’t get is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Apple says iOS activations are 230,000 a day, more than Android. Google disagrees.

During his 2010 Apple special music event numbers breakdown, Steve Jobs said that Apple is activating 230,000 iOS devices a day. He made sure to point out those were new activations and said some of their “friends” (read: Google) are counting upgrades in their numbers (200,000 Android activations a day).

“If we counted upgrades in our numbers they’d be way higher than 230,000″

Jobs thinks, using that metric, Apple is ahead of everybody else.

Google, however, told Fortune that Jobs has it wrong:

“The Android activation numbers do not include upgrades and are, in fact, only a portion of the Android devices in the market since we only include devices that have Google services.”

What’s interesting is that Apple and Jobs went to the trouble of bringing the numbers up. Why try to play that game with a competitor in the commodity OS business?

Apple says iOS activations are 230,000 a day, more than Android. Google disagrees. is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

120,000,000 iOS devices sold, 250,000 apps, 6.5 billion downloads – by the numbers

As usual, Steve Jobs began his Apple music event keynote today by giving a breakdown of iOS devices sold to date — 120,000,000. It took them from June 2007 to June 2010 to reach 100,000,000 and only 3 months to add another 20,000,000 on top of that. Jobs also said they’re activating new devices at a rate of 230,000 a day.

While older, 2007 devices are no longer compatible with iOS 4, iPad apps won’t run on iPhone, and camera apps won’t run on iPad or older iPod touches, that’s still a huge number of broadly compatible devices for developers to target. Case in point…

App Store downloads have hit 6.5 billion, which is an astonishing number. And yes, whoosh, that’s increasing at a rate of 200 a second. There are 250,000 apps in the App Store now, 25,000 of which are iPad apps. Speaking of stores…

In terms of Apple Retail Stores, they now have 300 in 10 countries with one in Spain set to increase both counts soon. On some days they get more than 1 million visitors. They teach 80,000 one-to-one classes a week. Over 50% of Mac buyers are new to the platform.

120,000,000 iOS devices sold, 250,000 apps, 6.5 billion downloads – by the numbers is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

Apple Posts September Media Event Video Stream in Multiple Formats

Apple has posted the full stream for today's Media event. While the stream had been available for Mac OS X 10.6 and iOS users immediately after the broadcast, it is now provided in multiple formats that can be viewed cross platform on both ...

iTunes 10 Ping social music network gallery

iTunes 10 is slowly, painfully going live right now and if you manage to download it, you can set up Apple’s new social music network, Ping. I’ve done that (you can find me here), and hooked it up with Facebook Connect, and…

Meh. Unless I’m missing something fairly major, it looks like only the Lady GaGa’s of the world (i.e recording artists) can share status, pictures, and videos, and get comments. The rest of us can find and follow friends, share musical tastes and buy concert tickets, but not much else.

Anyone else trying it and liking it?

Gallery after the break!

iTunes 10 Ping social music network gallery is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

Apple Introduces iTunes 10 With Ping - Social Network For Music - Available For Download Now

iTunes 10 Now Available to Download

Apple has finally posted the iTunes 10 release for download. iTunes 10 was introduced today during the keynote event. The new version of the media management application features a streamlined interface and a new networking feature called P...

Apple Unveils New iPod Touch With Retina Display, FaceTime, HD Video Recording, A4 Processor And More

Booyah releases InCrowd for iPhone and iPod touch

Booyah has released an iPhone and iPod touch version of its Facebook game, InCrowd, and it's now available on the App Store. The app, like the very popular MyTown, uses location check-ins to create a game around social networking. But unlike MyTown, this app was originally released as a Facebook game. Booyah originally started InCrowd as its first Facebook venture, but it's now bringing the game back to the iPhone, where it's presumably more comfortable at development. But the Facebook and iPhone versions work together (in fact, you need a Facebook account to play it), so check-ins on either platform can be seen in the app.

As for the game itself, it's exactly the kind of thing that's very popular among the huge tween audience for Facebook games -- there's a cartoonish avatar that can interact with friends socially, and checking-in to certain places earns the avatars popularity and status. There's a microtransaction element as well -- interacting uses energy, and if you don't want to wait for a refresh, you can spend 99 cents to get more. Standard social gaming stuff, although Booyah is pretty good at putting it together by now.

Booyah remains a company to watch in the social gaming space -- it doesn't seem to have had quite the success it wanted on Facebook, but the company is flexible enough to switch a game like this over to Apple's platform without skipping a beat. We'll have to wait and see whether or not the free app gains MyTown's level of adoption, however.

Booyah releases InCrowd for iPhone and iPod touch originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Booyah releases InCrowd for iPhone and iPod touch originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple Releases iOS 4.1 Golden Master To Developers

Windows Phone 7 released to manufacturers

Windows Phone 7 has been finalized and released to manufacturers, Microsoft announced Wednesday.


Microsoft - Windows Phone 7 - Operating system - Microsoft Windows - Software release life cycle

iPod touch outselling PSP and DS in games, not systems

During this morning's event, Steve Jobs tossed out the factoid that the iPod touch was trouncing traditional handheld gaming, claiming that the system had sold more than Nintendo and Sony's portables combined. If, like us, you thought that meant Apple had sold more devices than traditional game makers, then Steve was wrong -- he mentioned in the same event that Apple has shipped 120 million iOS devices, and while that's very impressive, it's not quite as big as the 125 million Nintendo DS systems the Japanese company had sold around the world as of January. That doesn't even count the 62 million PSP units Sony has sold worldwide. In terms of gaming devices sold, Apple has a long ways to go.

But Steve can't have been that wrong -- he said that the iPod touch had sold more than Nintendo or Sony combined. He can't be off by over 60 million, right? It's more likely that he meant software sales. There have been about 718 million DS games sold in the system's history, and about 252 million games sold on the PSP. And there have been 6.5 billion downloads of iOS apps so far (with 1.5 billion of those being game and entertainment apps). When you compare the numbers that way, yes, Apple is far outselling Nintendo and Sony in terms of game sales. But of course, iOS apps tend to be much cheaper than Sony and Nintendo's software (if not free), and gamers could probably argue all day about the difference in average quality of the two platforms.

Either way, Steve was stretching the truth a little bit on that stat. Apple has done a terrific job making inroads on portable gaming (some of it even without planning to do so), but the Cupertino company has a little way to go yet before it starts really competing with the established console manufacturers.

Update: A few commenters suggest that Apple has sold more iPod touches than both other systems combined recently, as in the last quarter or so. But the other two devices are a few years older than the oldest iPod touch, so that doesn't seem like a great comparison either. Again, Apple has made really incredible strides into handheld gaming, but the company isn't quite overwhelming its competitors in this market yet.

iPod touch outselling PSP and DS in games, not systems originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

iPod touch outselling PSP and DS in games, not systems originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple’s New iPod Touch and iPod Nano Commercials

During today's media event, Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced two new commercials, one each for the new iPod touch and iPod nano. Apple has now posted the commercials to its product-specific sites, as well as its YouTube page.


i...

Apple releases new iPod touch, iPod nano commercials

Apple has released new commercials for their updated iPod touch 4 and iPod nano 6. iPod touch – All kinds of fun holds true to its roots — lots of hands doing lots of awesome things, but iPod nano – Travel seems more like a hybrid, including elements previously seen in iPod shuffle commercials — less nano chromatic, more wearable.

Check out both commercials after the break and let us know what you think. Do they convince you to buy?

Apple releases new iPod touch, iPod nano commercials is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Epic’s spectacular Unreal Engine 3 tech demo free at iTunes App Store

Did you oooh and ahh at the fantastic gaming graphics that accompanied today's Apple keynote? You won't have to wait for next week's iOS 4.1 to get a taste of those textures for yourself. Though the full-on gladiator dueling of Epic's "Project Sword" may be a while off, you can get your hot little hands on "Epic Citadel" right now, a 82.2 megabyte download that explores a beautiful medieval castle town. Oh, and did we mention it's free? Even id Software's mindblowing 60FPS Rage demo must be quaking in its boots right about now.

Epic's spectacular Unreal Engine 3 tech demo free at iTunes App Store originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 15:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Review: Chronicles of Mystery for iPhone

Chronicles of Mystery is a hidden picture mystery game that is riddled with software bugs, a complicated plot, dull character dialogue and repetitive gameplay.


IPhone - Software bug - Games - Smartphone - Handhelds

Game Center coming in iOS 4.1, Epic Games working on Project Sword

Steve Jobs just showed off some screenshots and functionality for Game Center, which will be officially releasing with iOS 4.1 next week. The official app will provide social networking features for App Store games, including friends lists, achievements, "auto matching" (the rest of the world calls that matchmaking), challenges and a host of other cross-platform features for gamers on Apple's mobile platform.

Jobs also invited a few gentlemen from Epic Games onstage to show off "Project Sword," a gorgeous title running in the Unreal Engine inside iOS. It's an action RPG title that's coming soon with full Game Center integration, and the demo featured practically instant multiplayer fighting from a third-person perspective, as well as first-person world exploration. Seriously, this thing looked great, but you don't have to take my word for it -- Epic has already uploaded the very same environment shown in the demo as a free app, so go download and check it out now. It does require an iPhone 3GS or better, but man that's a good looking game.

Game Center is finally coming out with iOS 4.1, which Jobs said would be available next week. Looking forward to it!

Game Center coming in iOS 4.1, Epic Games working on Project Sword originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Game Center coming in iOS 4.1, Epic Games working on Project Sword originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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