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Archive for December, 2009
Official Playboy App for iPhone Approved
On Tuesday, December 8, the official Playboy iPhone app hopped into the App Storу. Everybody can buy it for just $1.99.
The app is a scaled-down iPhone version of the largest selling men’s magazine, Playboy, and includes portions of the text from the following well known features … Playboy Interview, Playboy Advisor, 20 Questions, Party Jokes, Fashion and more.
However do not expect to see everything you can find in the magazine. Apple does NOT allow nudity in the App Store. So the application includes the Playmate’s intro, data sheet, preview pictures and exclusive behind the scenes preview video. Theresa Hennessey explained: “The pictures are all non-nude or cropped, either from the magazine pictorial or from the Playmate’s Playboy.com pictorial.”
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Leave a commentiTablet Rumors: Coming March for $1000
MarketWatch reports that Apple will begin mass production of its much-rumored iTablet in February ahead of a launch in late March or April.
The report claims that the device will include a 10.1" multi-touch LCD screen. There were rumors that iTablet will have OLED screen and therefore delayed till the second half of 2010.
Current rumors also say that Apple has begun contacting book publishers about distributing their books through Apple for consumption on the new device. Apple is reportedly proposing a similar business model to its App Store, where Apple would retain 30% of each download's sale price with 70% going to the publishers. Amazon, for example, uses 50/50 model.
The estimated cost of the future device is $1000. Apple may sell 1-1.5 million tablets per quarter. The name of the future device is still unknown. Rumors say different vartiants: iTablet, TabletMac, MacTablet or just Apple Tablet.
Apple Picks Best Games of 2009 on iTunes
Apple created a list of the best iPhone games of 2009. The list is part of their iTunes Rewind 2009 where they are highlighting the best content across 2009 in music, movies, TV shows, audiobooks, podcasts, and apps.
Here is a list with links to AppStore.
Congratulations to all developers who created these impressive applications.
Developers, do not lie to Apple. They will pull your apps out!
If you are a developer, make sure you do not make fake reviews for your applications. Apple in fact, has taken serious steps, blocking the accounts of a developer and removing 1011 applications because of fake reviews.
The developer "Molinker" had many apps. Each of them had about 50 reviews. The developer was using his promocodes (every developer gets 50 of them for every app) to write reviews for his own apps. One of the users, who bought several apps, investigated this issue and wrote to Phil Schiller. The apps and all the reviews were removed very very quickly from AppStore.
What’s incredible is that the developer had 1011 apps, which is almost 1% of the entire App Store. Well that’s 1% of the App Store that no longer exists.
The developers shouldn’t be surprised, but they are:
We got email from Apple yesterday [Sunday 6th] which told us our contract is changed to pending status.
Actually, we do not know what’s wrong so far. We had contacted Apple for such sudden changes, hope we can get quick response and actions from Apple.
Nice, isn't it?
Apple SVP's Favorite iPhone Apps
Phil Shiller, Apple Senior Vice President of Marketing, was asked what his favorite iPhone Apps were, and here’s what he said:
- Shazam [Free - ]: “There’s just something so amazing about being anywhere, and some music starts playing and you just hold up your phone and can find out what it is,” Mr. Schiller said. “You never again have to say ‘That’s a great song! Who is it by?”
- CNN News [$1.99 - ]: “It’s really cool having the news in your pocket.”
- Facebook [Free - ]
- MLB.com at Bat 2009 [Currently free - ]
- NBA Game Time 2009 [$9.99 - ]
- ESPN ScoreCenter [Free - ]
- Eliminate Pro [Free - ]
- geoDefense [$1.99 - ]
- Best Camera [$2.99 - ]
Great apps!
Apple iTablet video demonstartion
Magazine publishers seem to already be getting on board with the concept of a media tablet even based on just the possibility that Apple will enter the market in the near future. The latest concept design comes from Time Inc who developed this design prototype to show off their plans. They think that digital magazines will replicate the print version, including advertising, and will include add-ons like multimedia and links to the Web. The publisher imagines that it will port all its titles into the new format, which it says will be ready for primetime by the middle of next year or sooner.
The ultimate design is planned to run on "whatever tablet Apple or any[one] else has up their sleeves" according to All Things Digital:
Square Enables iPhone to Handle Credit Card Purchases
Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, launched the new service named Square (still in beta) that allows you to make or take payments using your iPhone.
All this happens through an accessory able to process credit cards that is connected to the the device.
User just need to enter the amount, the security code and the signature directly on the touchscreen. There are no charges of any kind, except a U.S. cent on every transition, which is donated to charity.
The system is able to display a bill with lots of information: the map, the amount, the number of times that we used this system of payments in that particular store, and much more.
The system is currently being tested in the US. Maybe one day we will all use it everywhere.
Speech recognition software for iPhone
Dragon Naturally Speaking is a popular speech recognition software application for PC/Mac. Soon it will be released for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
The program for the iPhone will capture a clip of about 20-30 seconds and turn into text everything that was said. Then you can send your dictation via email or SMS.
Here is a video demonstration:
Fring for iPhone Gets Updated With Video Calls
Fring has added video calling support to the iPhone and iPod touch via Skype. This is a huge step further. iPhone became a videophone!
It works on Fring to Fring, and Skype to Fring. Unfortunately, it's not bi-directional. You would be able to see whoever is calling you from a desktop, but you won't be able to transmit your image. The reason is because the iPhone doesn't have a front camera, so you can't do face to face. The application will support two-way video calling if the iPhone and iPod touch gain front-facing cameras in the future. The company already supports two-way video calling on several Nokia phones with such cameras.
A promotional video highlighting the new video functionality has also been released:
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