China syndrome: On Apple linkbait and mainstream meltdowns

“Boycotting Apple because of working conditions in China makes about as much sense as boycotting The New York Times” because of journalism conditions in America.”

There are several stories floating around the web this week concerning boycotts planned against Apple, the result of stories floating around the web last week concerning working conditions in China. While in some cases the sentiment is good and the intention noble, in many cases its based on lazy, exploitive journalism and shallow, opportunistic activism, fed by a soundbite- and sensation-seeking readership.

And while Apple and China is just the latest example, it’s also one of the most tragic.

We’ve talked about it for the last couple of weeks during the iPhone & iPad Live podcast, but it’s worth going over again here.

The problems with working conditions are real. Absolutely. Apple’s role in the Chinese manufacturing system is real. Undeniably. But just as absolutely, just as undeniably, the real story here is about China and workers, not about Apple.

The pain isn’t of a situation but of a transition — the pain that come with the slow, steady growth through industrialization and the creation of a middle-class, manufacturing society.

Apple is only one of many, many, many companies that use factories in China to produce their goods. While some few token others listed are sometimes briefly listed in one sentence, the title, lede, and every other sentence in a lot of the recent coverage throws the spotlight entirely on Apple.

That misses the industry-wide nature of the issue, and the global economic nature of the issue. While Apple is certainly the most wealthy, influential, and likely powerful company in the industry, and in the world, at the moment, they aren’t the industry and are certainly not the global economy.

If Apple pulled out of China tomorrow, the entire rest of the industry would remain. The rest of the industry that hasn’t posted supplier responsibility reports like Apple has done. HP, Dell, Nokia, Samsung, Lenovo, Motorola, LG, Sony, and everyone else in consumer electronics who aren’t facing any media or pundit pressure to do so anyway.

All the other industries would remain as well, from jeans and shoes to toys household goods. The factories would no doubt be hurt by the loss of revenue from Apple, however, as would the workers, who typically earn more from these types of factory jobs than they can otherwise earn in the region. The increase in unemployment following an Apple pullout would probably only make that situation worse. But it would go on.

Once upon a time in the Western world, though not too long ago, we had children working in factories and mines for fractions of pennies. We had had working conditions as wretched as any found in China or other, similar, out-sourced locations. We had them until, as a society, they became intolerable to us and we forced the cultural and legal changes necessary to stop them. To say they would no longer be tolerated. (And sadly, we still have them in some places).

China will have to face this as well. With or without Apple. With or without the linkbait of major media outlets. With or the protests of the guilty-of-concience, opportunistic of cause, or patronizing of agenda. With or without the attention of a readership that increasingly only mortgages their attention for such things.

There’s a real story here. A story about China’s industrialization, of the political pressures within the government, the suicide rates in the country as a whole, the earning potential inside and outside the factory system, the ratio of worker pay verses management profit in the factories, the costs associated and benefits gained for in-sourcing vs. out-sourcing, and how the lives of Chinese workers would be affected now, and in the many potential futures with, without, and beyond the factory system.

But it’s a story that won’t be written, because it wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near the amount of clicks, because absent Apple it wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near the mainstream reaction, as the version that went to press. It’s a vicious cycle and it’s one of our own creation. And it won’t change until we change it.

That’s why boycotting Apple because of working conditions in China makes about as much sense as boycotting The New York Times” because of journalism conditions in America.

New iPhone 4S Siri commercials take you on a Road Trip and call your Rock God

Apple has released two new iPhone 4S ads, and like most of the previous commercials, they focus on Siri, the virtual personal assistant.

Road Trip shows a couple planning a cross-country trip, and using Siri to learn the best route, to find the best barbecue and find out about rodeos along the way, to find out where they are, to learn how big the Grand Canyon is, to find gas stations within walking distance (d’oh!), to learn what the constellation Orion looks like, and to remind them to do it all again.

Rock God shows a young man planning a music carrier, and using Siri to find out where to buy a guitar, how to play certain songs, creating lists of potential band names, to send messages to the ladies about when and where his band will be practicing, and to call him “Rock God”.

With Siri still in beta, there have been arguments raised against Apple making it the staple feature of their iPhone 4S advertising, saying it doesn’t work in real life anywhere nearly as well. However, Siri is also the most impressive, most demonstrable, most advertise-able feature of the new iPhone.

Chrome for Android vs. Safari for iPhone: Browser shootout

Google has just released the too-long-in-coming Chrome for Android browser, and Phil from Android Central wasted no time loading it up on his Galaxy Nexus, and putting it up against an iPhone 4S running Safari, for a classic head-to-head, phono-e-phono, Mobile Nations browser showdown video.

Both browsers are based on WebKit, the project Apple adapted from the old Linus KHTML Konquerer browser and has been sharing back with the open source community ever since. So it’s no surprise both score 100/100 on the Acid3 rendering test. Safari makes use of Apple’s Nitro JavaScript engine, however, while Chrome has Google’s V8 under the hood. That let Chrome edge out Safari in the SunSpider JavaScript benchmarks.

Safari and iOS in general still offer smoother, more closely-tracked multitouch scrolling, panning, and zooming. (No doubt due to iOS placing priority on interface rendering tasks, while they’re left to fight as equals on Android.)

Interestingly, Chrome, like Safari, offers no support for Adobe’s Flash player, or any other internet plugin.

Chrome is still in beta and only available for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich right now. No doubt the release version will be even better still.

Likewise, Apple isn’t slowing down. With iOS 5.1 on the horizon, Safari will improve as well.

Heck, now that BlackBerry has their new WebKit-based Torch browser, and Microsoft has embraced modern Internet Explorer builds on Windows Phone, it’s getting harder to find a bad browser out there.

Check out the video below for full out web rendering showdown.

Source: Android Central

Mobile Nations fitness month: Week 2! [iPad 3 + Xbox Kinect giveaway]

The quest to get thinner, stronger, faster, and healthier with iMore and Mobile Nations continues!

We’ve survived the first week. We’ve set our goals and whether we achieved them (yay!) or are still working on them (take that!), we’re feeling better and doing better because of it. And we’re getting tons of great feedback. This might just be the year where mobile and lifestyle fully come together, where eHealth and eFitness — or iHealth and iFitness if you’re in the Apple ecosystem! — finally start making the impact we’ve all been waiting for. It’s gone from being a token arm band case to being an entire ecosystem of highly specialized companion apps and accessories.

Jared took a look at what he considers the best calorie-counter app on iPhone (and iPad), MyFitnessPal, last week, and we’ll be looking at a lot more cool stuff this week and next.

We recorded a special edition of ZEN and TECH with CrackBerry.com’ Kevin Michaluk, where we answered a lot of questions, cleared up some big misconceptions, and went over a lot of dos and don’ts to get things going.

Also Kevin produced the single greatest (or most terrifying) fitness video in the history of YouTube. Watch his Sexy and you know it workout.

So let’s keep it going! Once again, we’re setting reasonable, attainable goals, and we’re going to take advantage of our awesome community to make sure we attain them. We have a special edition of our href=”http://www.zenandtech.tv/category/superfunctional/”>Superfunctional podcast coming your way this weekend to help keep you motivated, and as always we’re running everything through our Health and Fitness Forum to keep us focused, keep us accountable, and keep us keeping on!

Oh, and we’re still giving away a lot of great prizes

• Weekly drawings for an iPod nano. We’re giving away 4 total, one each week!
• Grand prize drawing for an iPad 3 IOU! (You’ll get it when Apple launches it!)

Our ZEN and TECH podcast has also added to the pot with an Xbox 360 Kinect giveaway, so be sure to enter that as well!

So hurry up and jump into our new Health and Fitness Forum now and pick your goal for week 2/a>.

Mobile Nations fitness month continues!

Poll: What hardware features do you want in iPad 3?

WAttention iMore Nation! Now that it looks like Apple is getting close to announcing the iPad 3, it’s time to get serious about what we’re expecting from it. Let’s start with hardware.

It pretty much sounds like a given that we’ll be getting a 2048×1536 Retina display, which means, at 9.7-inches it won’t be quite as dense as the iPhone 4S but you’ll likely be holding it further away from your eyes, effectively making the difference minor.

LTE 4G networking is harder to pin down. The Qualcomm chipset sounds like it’s ready, but LTE simply isn’t very widespread yet, and Apple has huge international sales. Apple currently offers three iPad 2 models: Wi-Fi, EVDO Rev. A, and GSM/HSPA. Could they switch to Wi-Fi, EVDO Rev A/HSPA+, and make the 3rd SKU an LTE model for carriers that support it (most importantly, Verizon?)

Quad-core Android tablets were announced earlier this year, does Apple have to meet that latest processor escalation? More cores open the door to more features, for example AirPlay uses the second core to mirror the iPad 2 display, but do we really need 4 yet? Since Apple controls both hardware and software, they can optimize the heck out of their processor and get performance that often feels better than greater spec’ed competition already.

Likewise 1GB of RAM and 128GB of NAND Flash memory storage. 1GB of RAM, especially with a Retina display, may open the door to even more spectacular gaming, especially if the GPU is also getting a boost as expected. The multitasking system could do with a healthy amount of available RAM as well. With Apple going to the iCloud it may not seem like on-device storage is as big a deal as it used to be, but with iBooks 2 making textbooks a reality, with the possibility of 1080p video support on the horizon, and with truly epic games needing a lot of storage space, it’s definitely something that should be on the radar.

Almost 3 years later, and USB ports and SDHC card readers are still something we get asked about. Apple has their Camera kit dongle and that’s likely all they’ll ever have. Wireless is their future for files. Thunderbolt, on the other hand, would be great for moving the largest of the large files, at least until next-generation Wi-Fi is ready. But Thunderbolt is based on PCI Express architecture, the kind you find in PCs, and doesn’t sound like it’s iPad compatible yet.

Better cameras, however, are certainly iPad compatible. Granted, few people will be replacing tiny, pocketable point-and-shoots with iPads, but the current cameras are barely serviceable. Facetime HD up front feels like table stakes at this point, and something in the 5 to 8 megapixel range would be much better in back. If either the Retina display or LTE radio requires a bigger battery, making iPad 3 even slightly thicker, hopefully Apple has the depth to put a decent piece of glass in as well.

The iMore Nation are a demanding people and we make no apologies for that. We love our Apple devices because they’re typically built beautifully and just work, and we’re going to keep Apple’s feet to the fire. Vote in the poll up top, and then tell us what’s most important to you and why in the comments below!

Iterate 15: Wiskus

Marc, Seth, and Rene iterate about high-concept eBooks and page-curl API, Bjango’s Skala Preview, RealMac’s Clear, ScoreKeeper XL, and the Metro-fication of iOS apps, and interrogate Dave Wiskus of Black Pixel about design… and what’s wrong with PhotoShop.

• Our podcast feed
• Download Directly
• Subscribe via iTunes

• [KAIST ITC - Smart E-Book Interface Prototype Demo], a totally insane use of Apple’s page curl API (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVyBwz1-AiE)
• Skala Preview
• Clear from Realmac
• Scorekeeper XL

• Dave Wiskus of Black Pixel

Hosts

• Marc Edwards (@marcedwards) of Bjango
• Seth Clifford (@sethclifford) of Nickelfish
• Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie) of iMore.com

Feedback

• Email: podcast@iterate.tv
• Twitter: @iteratetv
• Facebook: Iterate page

If you’re one of the best-of-the-best-of-the-best in mobile design for Android, BlackBerry, iOS, webOS, or Windows Phone, we’d love to get you on the show, or if you’ve found a drop-dead gorgeous app on any platform and really want us to talk about it, contact us and let us know.

Tweetbot vs. Twitterrific vs. Twitter: iPad twitter app shootout!

The darling of hardcore iPhone twitter users comes to the iPad, but how does Tweetbot measure up on the big screen compared to Twitterrific and Twitter’s own app?

Twitter may not be as big a social network as Facebook, but you can’t turn on a television, let alone visit a website, without seeing an endless stream of @usernames and #hashtags. While smartphones are great for Twitter on the go, the iPad is perfect for sitting back and really getting engaged. But which Twitter app for iPad is the best to engage with? Not only do you have Twitterrific, the original iOS Twitter app, but you have Twitter’s official Twitter for iPad app, and now you have Tweetbot to consider as well, one of the most popular iPhone Twitter apps, just released for the iPad.

We’ve often said iOS and Twitter and like chocolate and peanut butter, two great tastes that taste even better together. And it’s true. Time after time, platform after platform, the best developers and designers always seem to gravitate towards making Twitter clients, and nothing proves that more than Twitterrific, Twitter, and Tweetbot.

So which one is best, or more importantly, which one is best for you?

Caveats

We’re going to be using a lot of Twitter-specific jargon here. If you’re not already familiar with Twitter and are reading this as a way to decide which app you should start with, be sure to check out our Twitter and social networking slang dictionary so you can get up to speed on also the latest terms. (Or just skip to the conclusion to find out which one you should get.)

Also, Twitter for iPad is currently still the version that began life as Tweetie for iPad by Loren Brichter of Atebits but was bought and rebranded by Twitter before release. Twitter has since redesigned the iPhone version of Tweetie/Twitter, and we expect will be redesigning the iPad version soon as well. When that happens, the pros and cons listed here will change dramatically, and we’ll do an update.

Similarities

Since Twitterrific, Twitter, and Tweetbot are all Twitter apps for iPad, there are a great many similarities. They all have timelines to see the tweets of the people you follow. They all show you mentions, lists, and direct messages. They all let you search and see favorites. They all let you compose new tweets and direct messages. But the way in which they go about doing this varies greatly.

Reading Experience

Twitterrific has a combined timeline, so you see all the tweets of the people you follow listed alongside your @mentions and direct messages. You can read @mentions and direct messages as separate lists, but there’s no option to separate view just the tweets of the people you follow. The sidebar contains those tabs, as well as search, recent searches, lists, and current trends.

Twitterrific makes extensive use of popovers (a combination of popup and dropdown menu that Apple introduced alongside iOS for the iPad), but it can also make you feel boxed in, unable to expand content like pictures and lists to fill the screen. All this makes Twitterrific a good reading experience, but not a highly scalable one.

Twitter for iPad uses an almost futuristic feeling, highly table-optimized sliding panel user interface that’s also deeply divisive. Some love it, some loathe it. Everything you tap causes a new panel to slide in from the right, layer after layer, and you need to swipe them all away to get back to where you started. You can also pinch to zoom out on a tweet to bring up a user’s profile, and pinch to zoom in to fold it away again. Twitter’s sidebar contains a list of all your accounts (if you have more than one), and timeline, mentions, messages, lists, your profile, and search are shown for the currently active account. Overall, Twitter manages to feel scalable and spatial, but still simple to some, while annoying and needlessly fancy to others.

Tweetbot has a charmingly distinct user interface that some adore and others feel is overly loud and heavy. Instead of popovers or sliding panels, Tweetbot simply replaces the main window content with whatever you tapped on, be it timeline, user, or picture. That makes it harder to quickly refer back to something, but also removes a lot of the visual clutter that can otherwise build up. Tweetbot’s sidebar presents tabs for timeline, mentions, messages, favorites, search, your profile, lists, retweets, and mute filters (so you can temporarily suppress people, hashtags, and even certain clients and services). The web view also has a toggle to switch between standard and Readability views.

Despite the distinctive design and gesture actions for more advanced users, Tweetbot behaves a lot like a standard iOS-app, making it easily accessible to new users as well.

Writing experience

Twitterrific’s compose window is unique in that the content persists, even after you close it. If you start typing a tweet, then close it to go do something else, when you tap compose or hit reply again, your text will still be there. (You have to tap the counter and then hit Reset Text to clear it.) There are no auto-complete buttons, but if you type an @ (at) symbol it will start offering username suggestions. If you type a # (hashtag), however, it won’t start offering trend suggestions, and you can’t change which account you’re replying from once you’ve begun to reply. Also, if you add a picture or video, no thumbnails are shown so if you come back later, you’ll need to go to the link if you want to remind yourself what it was.

Twitter’s compose window can quickly start looking like an unruly stack of papers, one piled atop the other. However, it means you have instant, same-screen access to the contents of your timeline and of any conversations you’re joining, which makes checking references while you type a breeze. Twitter supports drafts, and offers auto-complete for both @mentions (which, ironically, brings up a popover in one of the few places Twitterrific does not) and #hashtags. If you add a photo or video with the camera button, you can preview it by tapping the camera button again, and there’s a location button to toggle your coordinates on and off as well.

Tweetbot has a clean, clear composition screen but you lose out on the ability to reference any other content unless you cancel, save as draft, and come back later which is more cumbersome. There are buttons for auto-completing @mentions and #hashtags, and toggling location, and any photos you add are placed in the menu bar as thumbnails you can tap to view or remove.

Bells and whistles

Twitterrific doesn’t yet support native iOS Twitter integration, which means you have to authenticate through the web the first time you set it up. (I’m guessing this will be updated in the not-to-distant future). Twitterrific also doesn’t support push notifications, which means unless you have email or SMS alerts set up, you won’t know if you get any mentions or direct messages until you open the app.

Twitterrific’s settings are found in the built-in iOS Settings app, and there you can enable the Dark Theme for night-time use, set up Tweet Marker to sync your timeline position between different clients, like iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and toggle and customize services, including read later (called bookmark) and advanced features like custom media uploads as well.

Twitter for iPhone supports native iOS Twitter integration and push notification, but not Tweet Marker. Despite having been on the market for a significant amount of time, it never got all the power features Twitter for iPhone enjoyed, and likely won’t given the almost certain redesign in its near future. You do have control over which image, video, and read later services you use. However, there’s still no pull-to-refrsh direct messages and while it marks messages as unread, frustratingly, there’s still no way to quickly mark them all as unread.

Tweetbot supports a ton of features, including native iOS Twitter integration, push notifications, and Tweet Marker. For notifications, it not only has options for mentions and direct messages, but retweets, favorites, follows, adds to lists, and subscribes to lists. It’s almost too many, but they can be mitigated by sleep options that suppress them at night (just pick your start and end times).

You can also customize services, including read later and mobilizer (like Safari’s built in Reader feature, but with your choice of provider). Literally, the options threaten to burst out of their popover.

Cost

Twitterrific is free but requires a $4.99 in-app purchase to turn off ads and turn on tweet translation and multiple account support. A universal binary, it supports both iPad and iPhone.

Twitter for iPad is free and also universal for iPad and iPhone.

Tweetbot is $2.99. It’s not universal so the iPhone version will cost you another $2.99.

Conclusion

That part about there being an embarrassment of riches when it comes to iPad Twitter apps wasn’t fluff or filler — it was truth. Twitterrific, Twitter, and Tweetbot each come from brilliant designers and developers with sometimes very different visions for what the ideal Twitter app entails.

Twitterrific is great for new users who want a simple, stable experience, where everything is easy to find, and often all in one place. It doesn’t have as many features, and lack of push notifications might be a show-stopper for some, but those who have been using it since the beginning and like the way it works and syncs consistently across iOS and OS X will also do well to stick with it.

Twitter for iPad, in its current form, is great for those who want fast access to literally layer upon layer of information. It’s an audacious, inspired interface that’s likely going to be replaced with something much more like the Twitter.com website, which also makes it very difficult to recommend to anyone who isn’t already using it.

Tweetbot might feel over-designed to some, but it’s well-designed. It has a ton of features for power users, including the best push-notification implementation in the business. As far as general purpose Twitter apps go, Tweetbot hits the best balance for the widest range of our readers.

Twitterrific could update any time now, and Twitter for iPad will be going through a substantial change soon, but as of right now, if the $2.99 price tag — less than the cost of a fancy coffee, mind you — doesn’t give you pause, Tweetbot should be your go-to Twitter app for iPad.

- Twitterrific – Download now

- Twitter – Download now

- Tweetbot – Download now

Tweetbot for iPad review

“Tweetbot has made the leap from iPhone to iPad and brought with it’s excellent user-interface, best-in-class notifications, and powerful yet accessible feature set.”

Twitter is the social network antithesis of Facebook — limited amounts of content, no obligation to follow those who follow you, and most of the communication is done out in the open by default. Twitter launched around the same time as iOS, and the two platforms immediately seemed made for each other (something which became official with iOS 5 Twitter integration.)

Tweetbot came out only in the last year but has quickly become one of the most popular and most powerful Twitter apps on the iPhone, going so far as to sweep the social network category in both iMore’s readers choice, and editors choice awards. Now it comes to the iPad with the same distinctive, mecha-inspired interface, but not as a universal binary — meaning you have to pay for the iPad version separately, even if you own the iPhone version.

It’s only $2.99, which is less than the price of most burgers, but is Tweetbot worth it? Do the features and functionality that rocked the iPhone scale to match the bigger iPad screen?

Setup

Thanks to support for native iOS 5 Twitter integration, setting up Tweetbot for iPad is as simple as tapping “okay” to the system popup requesting the access. Boom. All the accounts you’ve logged into in Settings.app are ready and waiting in Tweetbot.

Web-based authorization was always a pain, so this made for a delightful first impression.

Browsing for tweets

If you’ve ever used Tweetbot for iPhone, the biggest change you’ll have to get used to is also one of the easiest changes to get used to — instead of timeline, @mentions, messages, and the other tabs along the bottom of your tweet list, you now have them all available and un-nested in a handy sidebar. In landscape mode they’re fully expanded, with text labels and unread counts (where applicable), and in portrait mode they’re reduced to icons only but are no less easy to get to.

To switch accounts, just tap the tab at the top left with your name and avatar.

If you’re new to Tweetbot, the sidebar is how you control what you’re looking at:

• Timeline shows you the tweets of everyone you follow
• @Mentions shows any public messages or replies other users have sent you
• Messages shows any private, direct messages (DMs) other uses have sent you
• Favorites lists the tweets you’ve marked as memorable
• Search lets you quickly find terms, people, #hastags and current trends (popular topics)
• Profile shows your information, including bio, locations, and link, as well as follower, following, listed, and tweets counts, and your most recent tweets.
• Lists shows your own lists, or groups of other users you’ve set up
• Retweets shows your tweets that others have retweeted (forwarded on to their followers), tweets you retweeted (forwarded on to your followers), and you tweets, retweeted (tweets of yours that have been forwarded on by others).
• Mute filters lets you temporarily and selectively suppress other users (such as the guy from work you can’t unfollow but who suddenly feels compelled to tweet an entire 2-day cricket match!), specific hashtags (like an event you don’t want spoiled or just find annoying), and clients (for example, if you don’t want to see any Instagram pictures)
• Settings, which lets to toggle and customize all the various options, including a lot of what appears in the sidebar.

The bulk of the screen is taken up by the tweets themselves. The rather heavy looking title bar on top tells you what you’re looking at at any given time. Tapping the list button at the top left gives you quick access to your Twitter lists. Tapping the compose button at the right opens up a new tweet, ready for you to write.

The layout was well thought out and it works.

Interacting with tweets

The tweets themselves function almost identically to Tweetbot for iPhone. Tap a tweet to get option to:

• Reply (or reply to all)
• Retweet (or quote a tweet)
• Favorite (or unfavorite)
• Get a popup list of actions (including Read Later services like Instapaper, Pinboard, Readability, or Read it Later), copy the link to the tweet, copy the contents of the tweet, email the tweet, or translate the tweet if it isn’t in a language you understand.
• Get a detail view, which includes the tweet by itself, a tab to get to the user’s profile, a list of replies to the tweet, a list of users who retweeted the tweet, and a button to go to the favstar.fm webpage for the tweet (to track who favorited or retweeted the tweet)

For more advanced users, Tweetbot gestures are also available on the iPad. Just swipe from left to right on a tweet to bring a view of the complete conversation, in context, if applicable, and swipe for right to left to bring up a list of all replies to a tweet, again if applicable.

Gestures are inherently hard to discover, but Tweetbot does a great job using them as shortcuts for those who do discover them, but leaving everything just as accessible via the tap-through buttons and tabs.

Composing tweets

With a tap of the compose button or quote button, you’re ready to type. And that’s about it. Unlike some other Twitter apps, in Tweetbot for iPad the timelines all disappear, and the text doesn’t stay persistent if you cancel out of the new tweet sheet (though you can save as a draft). This makes it cumbersome for those who like to refer back to other tweets when replying, but it does keep the screen clear and focused.

Buttons along the top let you easily add location, auto-complete @usernames and #hashtag trends, and add pictures or video. The buttons aren’t the iOS default location arrow, @ symbol or # hashtag symbol proper, but rather icons of a compass, bust, and tag, which may make them less immediately recognizable but certainly not impenetrable.

Speaking of which, you can switch accounts by tapping your avatar. New users probably don’t have multiple accounts, so the hidden nature of this feature isn’t a show-stopper, but throwing a visual bone our way certainly wouldn’t hurt.

If you have previous drafts, you can access them via the drafts button at the top right.

Searching for tweets

Tap the search tab and your timeline is replaced by a search box, a Find People tab, a list of saved searches, and a list of worldwide trends (you can change that to country-specific trends in Settings). Having to tap through again to search for people may seem like a wasted step, but the find people search page includes a lot of additional options, like finding followers or people your following, as well as a list of interests such as music, sports, entertainment, and much, much more.

While Tapbots’ implementation is good, Twitter focuses on real-time results which often means older tweets are frustratingly unavailable, even if you know exactly what you’re looking for. Also, tapping or searching for any trending topic is sometimes just as likely to produce an overwhelming abundance of useless, rather than valuable results. Again, Twitter’s fault, not Tapbots.

Muting tweets

We’ve all been there — someone whose tweets we otherwise enjoy has gone off the deep end about sports, religion, politics, is spoiling a movie or TV show, has gotten drunk or is simply drowning out everything else in your timeline. You either can’t (boss, brother-in-law) or don’t want to unfollow them. That’s where mute filters come in. They’re like time-outs for Twitter, and Tweetbot excels at them.

You can mute or un-mute any user, at any time, by hitting the options button (which looks just like the location button), above their profile. You can choose to mute for a day, a week, a month, or forever. Once muted, the user appears under people in the mute filters tab.

You can also mute based on #hashtags, to stop anyone from ruining the game or the show, or otherwise filling your timeline with stuff you’d really rather not see. To mute or un-mute a #hashtag, just tap and hold down on it when you see it in the timeline.

If there’s a particular service or platform you really don’t care for either for some reason, you can tap edit, tap + (add), and choose from a long list of easily mutable clients. Turning off tons of Instagrams, or game scores, or social marketers who live in TweetDeck are all potential uses, though you’ll likely miss some good stuff in the process.

Mute filters aren’t something everyone uses, but Tweetbot makes them so easy, I’m betting many more are about to start.

Settings

To say Tweetbot has a plethora of settings is almost an understatement. There’s everything here from sounds (all, notifications, none), to display (font size, display name, date format, new tweets bar) to what’s in the navigation sidebar (you can toggle off everything but timeline, mentions, and messages), to quote format (standard, old style re-tweets, or via), triple-tap shortcut (set it to reply, retweet, favorite, translate, or launch Favstar), to post in background.

And that’s just the top level stuff. Phew.

Push notifications

Account settings open the door Tweetbot’s phenomenal push notifications implementation. Not only can you turn on notifications for the standard @mentions (either everyone or just those you follow), or direct messages, but you can get notifications for retweets, favorites, follows, when you’re added to lists, or when your lists are subscribed to.

It’s almost too much, or it would be if Tweetbot for iPad didn’t also provide sleep options. Basically, you can tell Tweetbot to suppress all push notifications during certain hours of the day or night (depending on your schedule). You tell them when to go silent and when to come back on, and that’s what they do.

If you’re frantically waiting for an incredibly urgent tweet, and are paranoid the system will choose that exact moment to go down, you can even see when the last notification came in, and hit a test button and make sure it’s still working.

It’s not anything Tweetbot for iPhone users haven’t been enjoying for a while, but that doesn’t make it any less superb on the iPad.

Services

All the usual services can be configured in Tweetbot for iPad, including your URL shortener of choice, image uploader, video uploader, Read Later host (they support Instapaper, Pinboard, Readability, and Read it Later), sync with Tweet Marker, and something akin to Safari’s super clean, distraction free Reader mode with Mobilizer (including support for Google, Instapaper, and Readability).

Tweet Marker stands out, especially if you have Tweetbot or another app that supports it on your iPhone or other smartphone, or your desktop Twitter app.

The good

• Features enough to make any power user happy
• Clean and accessible enough for new users
• Exceptional notification implementation
• Distinctive, charming user-interface

The bad

• Some might find the user-interface too distinctive and heavy
• Not as information-dense as some other Twitter apps
• No theme support

The conclusion

Tweetbot has made the leap from iPhone to iPad and brought with it’s excellent user-interface and best-in-class notifications. It’s not Tweetbot re-imagined for the iPad, but it’s Tweetbot brilliantly executed for the iPad. Powerful enough for the pro, accessible enough for the new user, it doesn’t have the audacity of Twitter for iPhone, but it has much more functionality — and everything needed to be the go-to Twitter client for the vast majority of iPad Twitter users.

2.99 – Download now

iPhone and iPad gifts for Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day is coming up fast, and if your lover loves their iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, you’re in luck, there are some fantastic device, app, accessory, and media gifts to thrill them and score you major brownie points. Whether you’re romantic enough to prepare well in advance, or if you’re scrambling to stay off the couch, sit back and get your groove warmed up — Rene and I decided to do a little written ZEN and TECH this week and help you pick out the perfect Valentine’s Day gifts for your special someone.

Dream devices for the person of your dreams

On the off chance the love of your life doesn’t yet have an iOS device to call his or her own, that’s a great place to start. An iPod touch can be the perfect travel or exercise companion. An iPad can entertain and inform at home or away. An a iPhone can keep you both in touch no matter where you are. And Apple TV is perfect for all the couple movie classics.

And hey, if you’re in a long distance romance, just wait until they discover FaceTime.

• Apple iOS device gift guide

Awesome accessories

If your significant other already has their iOS device needs met, then accessories are your next best bet. There’s something about a tangible gift — something about receiving a gift, opening it, seeing and feeling it for the first time. It’s… real.

There are a ton of great iPhone and iPad accessories to choose from. Here are some of our favorites.

Case-Mate Barely There Brushed Aluminum Case for iPhone

Year after year, Case-Mate melts my heart with a shiny, sexy case for the iPhone and this year is no exception — the Barely There Brushed Aluminum Case is simply spectacular. As always, it’s light as a feather, extremely low profile, and the finish is fabulous. Girls will love the heart red or stunning silver, guys the basic black. Both will appreciate the aircraft-grade aluminum inlay, gunmetal hard shell, and awesome good looks of the Barely There Brushed Aluminum.

$29.95 – Buy now

Pad & Quill Little Black Book for iPhone and Contega for iPad

Little Black Book‘s are usually reserved for hot little numbers, and Pad & Quill’s take on the classic is no exception — it wraps your high tech iPhone in old word craftsmanship. It fits both the iPhone 4S and iPhone 4, it’s precision cut and framed from Baltic Birch, covered in Italian leather, bound in book cloth, with an extra pocket inside for credit cards or ID. If pink is your thing, Pad & Quill is offering the Little Black Book in just that special edition color, just in time for Valentine’s. If not, they have a rainbow of other colors to choose from, from red to blue and everything in between.

Contega brings the same hipster vibe and quality construction to the iPad with even more features, notably a fold-up stand to make it easier to type or just watch your movies.

$54.99 and up – Buy now

Jawbone JAMBOX

You put down your wine glasses, take each other’s hands, walk over to the dance floor, hold each other close — and hear the tiny, tinny sound of your iPhone’s speaker. Grrrrr. Jawbone’s JAMBOX makes up for Apple’s still disappointing audio with the best Bluetooth sound ever. It’s rich. It’s deep. It’ll keep you dancing until dawn.

$179.99 – Buy now

8-Bit Dynamic Life Shirt

These light-up shirts from Think Geek will normally show two-and-a-half glowing hearts. But when you and your special someone come together, your heart bar glows full and you power up. Get one for yourself, one for your love, and whenever you’re together, your shirts will light up.

$17.99 – $24.99 – Buy now

Amazing apps

You know if there’s an app for just about everything, a large portion of those just have to be for love! Whether you’re deeply in love, trying to keep the home fires burning, or still trying to kindle the flame, there are most definitely apps for all that.

Online dating apps

If you’re still searching for that special someone, why not harness the power of your iPhone and iPad? Many of the popular online dating sites have apps in the app store, and since our lives are increasingly mobile, there’s no reason our love lives shouldn’t be as well. (The apps are usually free, as is browsing, but there are typically fees associated with messaging.)

Free – eHarmony

Variable – More online dating apps

Romantic apps

If you’re already in a relationship, especially if you’ve been in one for a while, and you need or simply want something sexy to spice up your Valentine’s day, the App Store has plenty to offer.

$1.99 – iKamaSutra

Interlude: A romantic rant

We looked for more apps we could recommend, but frankly most of them looked terrible. The icons were horrible, the screenshots were horrible, and the reviews were horrible. We’re long past the time lazy, opportunistic “developers” should be able to put out junk and make money off iPhone and iPad users. This should be a good market. There should be a great developer who can make a gorgeous looking, fabulous working dice game, spin the bottle, truth or dare, or something — anything — else for adults who simply want to have some fun. Take this as a challenge — by next Valentine’s Day, have some amazing stuff in the store for couples!

More apps

We offer up what we think are simply the best apps day in and day out here at iMore, just because it’s Valentine’s doesn’t mean you need to get a Valentine’s specific app. Sometimes something thoughtful, something that shows you’ve listened, learned your significant other’s interests, and found them something delightful is the way to go.

• iMore’s best app lists

Last minute gift ideas

If you’re reading this with only minutes to spare before your special someone comes to the door, or comes downstairs, all hope is not lost. In addition to the apps listed above, all of which can be bought in an instant, there are also several sweet services and certificates that are yours to be had, only a few clicks away.

Netflix, Hulu Plus, Slacker and other subscription

You’ll be stuck watching romantic comedies, chick flicks, or something racy, but you won’t be stuck on the sofa or the dog house!

• Netflix
• Hulu Plus
• Slacker Personal Radio

iTunes, App Store, iBooks gifts and gift certificates

If romance is still fresh and new and you don’t want to risk gifting the wrong app or iBook or iTunes music, you can get them a gift certificate. Don’t just hand it over, however. Take their hand and go online shopping with them!

• iTunes gift certificates

Amazon gift certificates

Amazon has a ton of digital content all there own, but they also have old school media — paper books, plastic CDs and Blu-Rays, games that come on cartridges… Gift certificates let your special someone pick just exactly the goods — real or virtual — they want, and Amazon will deliver it straight to the door or the device. Again, shop with them!

• Amazon gift certificates

Your Valentine’s gift ideas?

Did we miss any of your favorite Valentine gift ideas, past, present, or future? Anything that especially made your heart melt or soar or skip a beat? Please share in the comments!

Apps & Accessories Live 01: Video editors, Launch Center, and glowing Apple logos

Georgia, Seth, and Rene talk about copy-cat apps, iMovie vs. Avid, Launch Center, Jailbreak apps for iOS 5, as well as cases with stands, iPhone guns, and glowing Apple logo mods. This is Apps & Accessories Live!

• Subscription information coming soon! Right now you can enjoy Apps & Accessories Live in the iPhone & iPad Live fees!

Meta

• February is fitness month at iMore and Mobile Nations! [iPad 3 giveaway!]
• Don’t forget we give away a ton of stuff!

App News

• Apple removes copy-cat apps from the App Store, doesn’t address larger issues
• iMovie vs Avid Studio: iPad video editing app shootout
• Readdle Remarks brings note-taking and PDF annotating in one to iPad
• Book Palette for Mac offers 10 beautiful templates for iBooks Author
• iMore app picks of the week for February 4, 2012 [Giveaway]

Jailbreak Apps

• BiteSMS vs Messages+ for iOS 5: which should you use?
• LockInfo vs IntelliscreenX for iOS 5 jailbreak: which should you use?
• Hands-on with Zephyr for the iPhone and iPod Touch [Jailbreak Apps]

Launch Center

• Launch Center puts Messages, Facebook, Twitter, a flashlight, more in your iPhone Notification Center

Accessory News

• Xappr Gun turns your iPhone into an FPS dream machine!

• Ten One Design announces Pogo Sketch Plus capacitive stylus for iPhone and iPad
• Hands on with the Jot Touch, a pressure sensitive stylus by Adonit

• Incipio SILICRYLIC case with kickstand for iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 vs. Case-Mate Pop! Case with Stand for iPhone 4S, iPhone 4

iPhone Mods

• iFixit Thirsty Bag for iPhone, iPad review
• iFixit iPhone transparent rear panel mod kit review
• Hands on with the glowing Apple logo mod for iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S

Hosts

• Georgia (@GeorgiaTiPb)
• Seth Clifford (@sethclifford)
• Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie)

Credits

You can reach all of us on Twitter [@iMore](http://twitter.com/imore), or you can email us at , or leave a comment on the website when the show goes live.

We’re here every Sunday night at 6pm Pacific, 9pm Eastern, 2am GMT, and our companion show — iPhone and iPad Live! — is at the same time, on the same channel, on Wednesday nights — www.iMore.com/live

For all our podcasts — audio and video — including iPhone and iPad Live, ZENandTECH and Superfunctional, Iterate and Girls Gone Gadget and more… see MobileNations.com/shows

If you haven’t already please subscribe to all our shows in iTunes and leave a rating. It helps people find the show and means a lot to us!

Thanks to the iMore Accessory Store for sponsoring the podcast, and to everyone who showed up for the live chat!

How Apple is defending against Samsung and Motorola’s unfair, unreasonable, discriminatory patent attacks

Apple is increasingly playing defense against lawsuits from Samsung and Motorola that seek to take iPhones and iPads off the shelves and out of stores. Apple is trying to do the same to their competitors, of course, but there’s a subtle difference — Samsung and Motorola are suing Apple over FRAND (Fair, Reasonable, And Non-Discriminatory) patents and are apparently seeking licensing that’s anything but fair and reasonable, and may in fact be discriminatory.

FRAND patents are typically typically pledged as part of a standard, which makes them essential to a technology, the organizations that govern those standards require them to be equitably licensed back to everyone. That’s the whole point of having standards. If you want your invention to become a standard, you let it be used as a standard.

FRAND vs. non-FRAND

Apple doesn’t play the FRAND game with the iPhone or iPad. They don’t want their multitouch patents to be a standard. They don’t want other companies using them. (Unlike Microsoft, they don’t want to make their competitors’ products more expensive, they want them to stop being Apple-like.)

Samsung and Motorola did play the FRAND game, however, and did want their wireless patents — covering core 3G technologies, among other things — to be standards. However, when Samsung and Motorola infringe on Apple’s non-FRAND patents, they then demand outrageous terms from Apple to license their FRAND patents — which Apple has to use for their products to work on existing networks — hoping Apple will cave and cross-license their non-FRAND patents as part of the deal.

Put another way, it’s like the owner of your local public pool refusing to let you swim there unless you let them swim in your private pool at home. Worse, it’s like the manager of your local public pool demanding you pay him $1,000,000 dollars to swim in a pool you’re supposed to have fair and equal access too, unless he gets to swim in your private pool at home. Worse still, it’s like the manager of your local pool has made agreements that force anyone who wants to swim anywhere to get a license from his pool first, then demands you pay him a fortune for it, and give him access to your private, home pool. (In one case, in a swim-suit that looks surprisingly like yours. Only bigger.)

What can Apple do?

According to Florian Mueller over at FOSS Patents, this means Apple has to be careful, and iterative in their defense.

Apple won’t get a deal that meets its needs unless Samsung and Motorola (or Google) are forced to recognize the fundamentally greater strategic and commercial value of Apple’s non-standards-related patents, which are the fruit of independent innovation and independent commercialization as opposed to a company’s ability to push its patented ideas into industry standards everyone is forced to implement after a collective of major industry players defines them.

Samsung and Motorola (or Google) would like all patents to be treated in more or less the same way. They give nothing more than lip service to their FRAND licensing obligations. They may hope that the law on this isn’t sufficiently settled in major jurisdictions. They look for loopholes in the rules — including certain opportunities in Germany, where the case law on this is more favorable to them than elsewhere. If they realize at some point that this strategy doesn’t work out because of a combination of court rulings, regulatory intervention and Apple’s determination to stand its ground, then — and only then — Apple will ultimately get the kind of deal it wants. Until then, Apple doesn’t even have much to talk about with Samsung and Motorola (or Google).

Sure, you can say Apple is being selfish by not licensing multitouch to one and all, but they never agreed to in the first place. (Are you being a selfish by not letting everyone who wants to come swim in your private home pool?) Samsung and Motorola did agree to let everyone use their patents under FRAND terms so those patents would be become essential to the standard.

Enter the European Union

Now Samsung and Motorola are certainly free to do and to sue what and who they want… up to a point. The European Union has already announced they’re investigating Samsung for FRAND abuse, and Motorola may not be far behind. With pressure from Apple on one side, and anti-trust action on the other, it puts them in a delicate position.

In the meantime, Apple can’t give in to Samsung and Motorola’s unfair, unreasonable, and discriminatory demands, and they can’t risk injunctions like the one that was temporarily in effect in Germany last week, becoming permanent before the EU sorts everything out.

Whether or not there will ultimately be a settlement, like the one they achieved with Nokia over similar FRAND patents, only time will tell. All Apple can do for now is continue the careful, iterative defense.

Mueller’s whole article, which delves into the patents and legal issues in great detail, is worth a read.

Source: FOSS Patents, x2

Samsung awkwardly chooses awkward Galaxy Note for latest iPhone attack add

Samsung has aired another of their good-natured iPhone attack adds, which should be an occasion for merriment and ego-prickly good fun. But once again the commercial feels like it missed it’s mark. Or rather, the whole series of commercials still seem awkwardly in search of a mark. This one stars the latest in Samsung’s broad-range of devices, each separate by a different Galaxy monicker and roughly 0.25-inches of screen size, the Galaxy Note. It’s something that can’t quite make up it’s mind between being a phone and a tablet — I’m not going to call it a phablet — and that’s either the best of both worlds… or the worst. The jury is still out. How big is it? 5.3-inches of HD Super AMOLED big, baby. (Yes, that’s exactly inverse the iPhone’s traditional 3.5-inches.)

It’s also got a stylus.

Now, I’m not religiously opposed to a stylus — I’m an artist by trade and I’ve used several types of stylus on the iPad since it came out. However, a stylus by itself is not a differentiator. It’s what you can do with it that’s a differentiator. It’s all about the software. I’m also not going to deny that, for some things, a bigger screen is not just bigger, it’s better. Hey, I’ve got a 9.7-inch iPad and Steve Jobs spent over an hour in 2010 telling us what that meant in terms of the type of apps it could run.

But Samsung never makes the case for either in their Galaxy Note commercial. They never show off a lick of innovative, compelling software in the whole damn ad. They’re too busy, once again, making fun of iPhone users. (Not iPhones, remember. iPhone users.)

This time we’re giddily missing the Super Bowl (presumably on the west coast because it’s still light outside) by standing in line for an iPhone launch (which never happens any time near Super Bowl time), and the massive size and pen-ly charm of the Galaxy Note makes us break out into the worst Van Halen meets the Simpsons tribute number. Ever. They’re copying the spirit of the old Get a Mac ads without any of the substance. Shocking, really, given their history.

Seriously, Samsung couldn’t have used any of those multi-million dollar minutes to show us the advantages to the Galaxy Note having such a big screen? To show us how absolutely killer a stylus makes the mobile experience? They flashed some photos, doodled on the screen, and did the equivalent of a FaceTime call. That’s it.

And that’s fairly lame. Google’s Galaxy Nexus commercial showed you can highlight awesome Android hardware and software features in a compelling way. Samsung shows you can mock iPhone users, call them baristas, and convert them to the world’s biggest ass phone just by waving it at them.

The girl in the commercial sums it up best when she says, “I don’t know what to believe anymore.” As much as Samsung bashes the iPhone, they give no reason to believe in the Galaxy Note.

Samsung, if you want to court iPhone users, don’t do it by making fun of us or insulting our intelligence. Do it by making us jealous of your phone… er… tablet… er… phone.

Senior Apple product integrity director poached by Google for… secret project?

Sounds like Google has hired away Simon Prakash, formerly Apple’s senior director of product integrity, to work on a “secret project” deep in the heart of the Googleplex. Reports VentureBeat:

Simon Prakash worked at Apple for more than eight years and was most recently the senior director of product integrity at Apple, according to his LinkedIn page. That means he was responsible for product quality across all of Apple’s products, from iPhones to Macs. Apple has the best reputation for product quality, according to consumer satisfaction surveys by J.D. Power.

The hiring is notable for a couple of reasons. First, Apple and Google had an infamous no-poaching pact in place for many years, a gentlemanly if potentially actionable agreement not to actively solicit or hire each other’s talent. The U.S. Justice Department is still investigating the arrangement on the grounds it unfairly limited employee work options and compensation. Combined with the strains in Apple and Google’s relationship, that agreement seems no longer to be in place.

Second, it shows Google is continuing to evolve into a company that values design and polish as much as features and engineering. The knock on Google used to be that their stuff worked great but wasn’t much to look at — that it felt designed by committee and that no one had tried using it before it shipped. Over the last year they’ve given facelifts to all their major online properties, and it looks like they’re only getting started.

With Prakash’s hire, the burning question is, what “secret project” will he be working on? He’s a hardware guy in a company that’s so far been content to let partners like Samsung, HTC, and Motorola make all their hardware. Google is in the process of buying Motorola, but claims they’ll be running it as a separate business. Merely helping oversee the quality of partner hardware doesn’t seem that “secret” however.

With co-founder Sergei Brin running all sorts of experimental initiatives over at Google, it really doesn’t have to be phones or tablets — it could be flying saucers. But it kinda has to be phones and tablets, right?

More on Apple and ZFS, speculation on iOS

Following up on the information iMore received yesterday on potential ZFS hooks in iOS 5.1, a reliable source let us know that Apple has been investing heavily in ZFS appliances from Oracle. (Whether or not this will be made public is unknown; it doesn’t seem to be right now.)

Also, several of our readers familiar with ZFS wrote in to speculate as to why Apple may be exploring ZFS for use on iPhone and iPad. Broadly, it may have something to do with ZFS’ snapshot technology. ZFS snapshots can be easily compressed and encrypted, de-duplicated, and can transfer delta (bit differential) updates between cloud and device. The snapshots can also work like Time Machine, easily and efficiently providing incremental backup and restore capability from an hour ago, a day ago, a week ago, or more, asynchronously and block by block. Here’s what Wikipedia says about ZFS snapshots:

An advantage of copy-on-write is that when ZFS writes new data, the blocks containing the old data can be retained, allowing a snapshot version of the file system to be maintained. ZFS snapshots are created very quickly, since all the data composing the snapshot is already stored; they are also space efficient, since any unchanged data is shared among the file system and its snapshots.

Writeable snapshots (“clones”) can also be created, resulting in two independent file systems that share a set of blocks. As changes are made to any of the clone file systems, new data blocks are created to reflect those changes, but any unchanged blocks continue to be shared, no matter how many clones exist. This is an implementation of the Copy-on-write principle.

Apple is an incredibly private company that works hard behind the scenes in order to present a beautifully packaged, highly polished product to consumers. No doubt there is a lot of really cool, really geeky technology at the core of iCloud, for example, but all most of us see are elegant interface elements in Settings.app that, when tapped, all but transparently backup and restore our iPhones or iPads.

If indeed Apple is planning on using ZFS to make iCloud backups and restores better, it will probably be invisible to end users. One day, iCloud will simply work better, faster, and even more reliably.

More: Wikipedia

iPhone & iPad Live 278: Macworld 2012, iPad 3, iPhone 5

Rene, Georgia, and Seth talk about Macworld|iWorld 2012, the latest iPad 3 rumors including quad-core and LTE, and what it all means for iPhone 5. Plus, new retail boss John Browett, Steve Jobs quotes, and Jailbreak troubleshooting. This is iPhone & iPad Live!

• Subscribe via iTunes: Audio | Video
• Subscribe via RSS: Audio | Video
• Download directly: Audio | Video
• Show notes

META

• February is fitness month at iMore and Mobile Nations! [iPad 3 giveaway!]

Macworld|iWorld 2012

• This was our Macworld
• Complete Macworld coverage
• What new hardware are you most looking forward to from Apple in 2012?

iPad 3

• Could Apple release a separate 4G LTE iPad 3 and Phone 5 in select markets?
• Supposed debug leak shows iPad 3 with quad-core A6 chip and LTE
• Foxconn plans to build five additional iPad production plants in Brazil

iPhone 5

• 40,000 petition Apple for “ethical” iPhone 5 manufacturing
• Tim Cook speaks out against claims of factory worker mistreatment
• iPhone 5 counter claims: not going into production yet, not going to be longer or wider

Grab bag

• Apple posting Steve Jobs pictures, quotes at Cupertino Campus
• Apple appoints John Browett as Senior Vice President of Retail
• China Telecom aiming to launch iPhone 4S in February
• Apple’s iPad not affected by Amazon’s Kindle Fire

Jailbreak

• How to troubleshoot common jailbreak issues on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch
• How to take a screen recording on your iPhone or iPad [Jailbreak app for that]

Hosts

• Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie)
• Georgia (@GeorgiaTiPb)
• Seth Clifford (@sethclifford)

Credits

You can reach all of us on Twitter @iMore, or you can email us at podcast@imore.com, or leave a comment on the website when the show goes live.

We’re here every Wednesday night at 6pm Pacific, 9pm Eastern, 2am GMT at www.TiPb.com/live

For all our podcasts — audio and video — including iPhone and iPad Live, ZENandTECH and Superfunctional, Iterate and Girls Gone Gadgets and more… see MobileNations.com/shows

If you haven’t already please subscribe to all our shows in iTunes and leave a rating. It helps people find the show and means a lot to us!

Thanks to the iMore iPhone Accessory Store for sponsoring the podcast, and to everyone who showed up for the live chat!

How to install beta Mac App Store apps and provisioning profiles

Get in on a Mac App Store beta but not sure how to install the beta app? There are several apps that have iPhone and/or iPad versions as well as Mac versions these days, and if you’re beta testing the iOS version, you might need to set up the Mac App Store version as well. No worries, as long as you gave them the proper hardware UUID for your Mac, getting the app set up easy to do. In fact, it’s just as easy, and very similar to, the process for installing iOS beta software on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad.

Install the provisioning profile

1. Download the file to your Mac.
2. If the file came zipped, unzip it. (Yeah, obvious, but we try to be complete.)
3. Double click the .provisionprofile file
4. System Preferences will launch; click on Install
5. When prompted, enter your admin password
6. The provisioning file should then show up in your profiles

Install the binary

1. If you have an older version of the app already on your Mac, play it safe and trash it
2. Drag the beta app to your Application folder

That’s it. If you have any trouble — it’s a beta app, after all — check with the developer. You made need to trash some other, previously installed files, or do some other configuration first. When you do have it working, enjoy.

The Mac App Store isn’t the only way to distribute software on OS X, so many developers may never need to send UUID-locked beta builds. But if the Mac App Store is the only way the developer intends to distribute their software, this may well be the beta road they take.

• More tips and how-tos
• Mac help and discussion forum

How to install beta Mac App Store apps and provisioning profiles

Get in on a Mac App Store beta but not sure how to install the beta app? There are several apps that have iPhone and/or iPad versions as well as Mac versions these days, and if you’re beta testing the iOS version, you might need to set up the Mac App Store version as well. No worries, as long as you gave them the proper hardware UUID for your Mac, getting the app set up easy to do. In fact, it’s just as easy, and very similar to, the process for installing iOS beta software on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad.

Install the provisioning profile

1. Download the file to your Mac.
2. If the file came zipped, unzip it. (Yeah, obvious, but we try to be complete.)
3. Double click the .provisionprofile file
4. System Preferences will launch; click on Install
5. When prompted, enter your admin password
6. The provisioning file should then show up in your profiles

Install the binary

1. If you have an older version of the app already on your Mac, play it safe and trash it
2. Drag the beta app to your Application folder

That’s it. If you have any trouble — it’s a beta app, after all — check with the developer. You made need to trash some other, previously installed files, or do some other configuration first. When you do have it working, enjoy.

The Mac App Store isn’t the only way to distribute software on OS X, so many developers may never need to send UUID-locked beta builds. But if the Mac App Store is the only way the developer intends to distribute their software, this may well be the beta road they take.

• More tips and how-tos
• Mac help and discussion forum

ZEN and TECH 32: Mobile Nations health and fitness kickoff

Georgia and Rene are joined by CrackBerry Kevin Michaluk to kickoff Mobile Nations Fitness Month. We break down how best to get started, set attainable goals, and get results, and address some of the most common questions and misconceptions. This is ZEN and TECH!

• Our podcast feed: Audio | Video
• Download Directly: Audio | Video
• Subscribe via iTunes: Audio | Video

Related episodes

A lot of the material discussed in this show has been gone over in more detail in previous episodes. Here are some handy links.

• Breathing
• Sleep
• Exercise
• Nutrition
• Goal Setting

Hosts

• Georgia (@GeorgiaTiPb)
• Rene (@reneritchie)
• Kevin (@crackberrykevin)

Contact

You can reach all of us @ZENandTECH, via email at podcast@zenandtech.tv, or leave a comment below!

Thanks everyone, you’re the best community on the web and we love having you with us!

Disclaimer

While Georgia is a therapist, she’s not YOUR therapist. Everything said or implied on this show is for informational and entertainment purposes only. And shouldn’t be taken in any way as a replacement for proper, professional care.

Credits

Music is Peace on Earth by wellman.

Spammers take fake iPhone 5 scams to SMS

Scammers never miss an opportunity to scam, and while Twitter, forums, and email have long been subject to disgusting “test & keep new iPhone/iPad/whatever” spam, it looks like the iPhone 5 version has taken to SMS. That’s right, not only are they content to waste your time and attention, they’re now also wasting your text message totals.

A couple of our Twitter followers received identical scam spam today:

Apple is looking for iPhone 5 testers! The first 1000 users that go to [scam web address] and enter [scam code] will get to test & keep a new iPhone 5.

Needless to say, no they won’t. If you get the text message, let us know in the comments, report it to your carrier, and by no means do anything it requests.

Source: @AKMolin, @MDSaunders

How to find your Mac UDID for Mac App store beta testing

Trying to figure out just exactly how to find your Mac UDID so you can get in on an ad-hoc Mac App Store beta? Just like with iPhone and iPad, your Mac has a UDID (technically a Hardware UUID) that developers can use to send you app builds before they become publicly available. Luckily, it’s easy to locate once you know where to look.

1. Click on the Apple logo at the top left of your Mac menu bar
2. Click on About This Mac
3. Click on **More Info…”
4. Click on System Report
5. Make sure Hardware is selected at the top left
6. The very last entry in the list on the right will be your Hardware UUID

Copy and paste it and mail it off to the developer, then wait for your ad-hoc app to arrive and start beta testing!

Of course, since the Mac App Store isn’t the only way to distribute software on the Mac, developers can also choose to simply send you a non Mac App Store — i.e. regular-style apps. If they’re developing specifically and only for the Mac App Store, however, this might be the way they choose to go. If it is, you’re all set!

• More tips and how-tos
• Mac help and discussion forum