iPad

“Steve Jobs schools” in the Netherlands

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This August, 11 so-called “Steve Jobs schools” will open in the Netherlands, serving 1,000 students primarily through educational apps on Apple’s iPad, replacing everything from books to blackboards.

It will be interesting to see how this goes. If teachers, parents and students are behind the project, then it should work out fine, but it will mean changes and acceptance from all three groups.

BlackBerry 10 not coming to PlayBook

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Today on the quarterly conference call, BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins announced that BlackBerry 10 would not be coming to the PlayBook as previously expected. Apparently the performance wasn’t up to snuff, and Heins want the focus back onto core products.

It’s not like there’s enough PlayBook users to bother with anyway.

Apple rejects iOS app because it uses iCloud

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Justin Esgar built iCloud syncing into SignMyPad so users could access the documents on their iPhone as well.

Nonetheless we were denied for our use of iCloud. Apple’s reasoning was that they will not allow iOS applications to use iCloud to sync “non-user-generated” data between devices. After some lengthy followup, we learned that while using a “drawing application” to create a new piece of art and then saving that file would be considered “user-generated”, using our app to add a signature and content to a PDF and saving it as a new file is not “user-generated”. The exception, of course, being for Apple’s own iOS applications, like those in iWorks. So after a long phone call with Apple that equated to my logical arguments being repeatedly contested with the same sentence from an apparent script (“your app does not follow our guidelines regarding user-generated documents in iCloud”), what was their recommendation for how to get over this hurdle? Use a 3rd party iCloud competitor. Wow.

I don’t get it.

iOS 7 and education

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iOS 7 provides powerful new ways to configure and deploy devices across institutions and features to help schools purchase, distribute and manage apps with ease. App Store license management, seamless enrollment in mobile device management (MDM) and single sign on are just some of the capabilities in iOS 7 that make it ideal for education.

Barnes & Noble abandons Nook hardware

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As was seemingly just a matter of time, the struggling book seller confirmed that it is abandoning its Nook hardware business and will instead rely on a ”partnership model for manufacturing in the competitive color tablet market” that will seek third-party manufacturers to build eReaders that run Nook software.

The tablet business is tough and companies like Barnes & Noble figured they could swoop in and easily grab share from Amazon. It’s not that easy.

Microsoft to bring “Age of Empires” to iOS

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Microsoft Corp will offer its popular “Age of Empires” game for Apple Inc’s iPhone and other smartphones through a tie-up with Japan’s KLab Inc, seeking to capture growth in a booming mobile game market.

Benjamin: A Franklin style task manager for iPhone

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Benjamin is a task manager based on the FranklinCovey method of time management. Built specifically to help replace your heavy Franklin Planner, Benjamin stores your master task list, daily task lists, projects, and daily notes so they are always at your fingertips. Best of all, Benjamin lets you sync your information between iPhone and iPad so that it’s conveniently available whether you’re at your desk or on the go.

I remember using the paper version of this. Of course, it didn’t sync and correcting entries was a pain. This looks good.

What makes a good QA person

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Brent Simmons on his QA person Nick:

Nick does excellent work.

Which means that when I’m busy and have a lot to do, I curse his name, the air he breathes, and everybody who’s ever been nice to him. I suspect his heart is black and terrible and full of hatred toward me personally.

Which is just to say, again: Nick does excellent work.

Perfect.

iPad Web usage share grows

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Apple users are still prolific when it comes to tablet Web browsing, while Amazon’s Kindle Fire and Samsung’s Galaxy Tablet families remain in second and third place, respectively. Apple’s iPad usage share increased in May 2013 after a slight dip in April 2013, making its present Web usage share (82.4%) the highest since the beginning of 2013.

Again I ask—What the hell is everyone else doing with their tablets?

Apple owns the future of mobile

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Apple owns the future of mobile devices, not because it has erected a near monopoly market position protected by major barriers to entry like IBM in 1970s or Microsoft’s DOS and Windows in the 80s and 90s or Google’s search and Adobe’s Flash in the 2000s; Apple sells its products within a very diverse and openly competitive market and maintains minority unit market share in smartphones.

It just happens that Apple is making the vast majority of all the profits in mobile hardware, software, media and services. And the mobile segment happens to have much brighter prospects than the rest of the consumer technology market, particularly WinTel PCs.

Very well thought out and lengthy article from Daniel Eran Dilger.

iOS 7 icon grid is wrong

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Neven Mrgan:

Just about the most asinine, presumptuous, hubris-filled thing a designer can say is that someone else’s design is “wrong”. That word is reserved for judgments of absolute truth or ethical guidance; for flawed mathematical proofs and crimes. And yet, allow me to declare the following: Jony Ive’s icon grid in iOS 7 is wrong.

L.A. school board OKs $30 million for Apple iPads

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Apple Inc. won a $30-million contract Tuesday from the L.A. Unified School District, paving the way for the company to provide every student with an iPad in the nation’s second-largest school system.

The Board of Education voted 6 to 0 on Tuesday to approve the contract after hearing senior staff laud Apple’s product as both the best in quality and the least expensive option that met the district’s specifications.

This is great news for students.

The deception of “photorealism”

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Matt Drance on iOS 7:

Now the hardware has caught up, and the Apple design team has a new leader. We don’t need the deception of “photorealism” anymore. Despite the loss of these tricks, iOS 7 feels more real. The parallax effect conveys an entire living world under that glass, not just abstract pictures and icons. This is reinforced by the launch and quit animations: your eye never loses sight of where you’re going, or where you came from.

Don’t worry about iOS 7

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Judging from my inbox, Twitter and Messages, people are losing their minds over iOS 7 and some of the changes Apple introduced at WWDC last week. Here is my advice to you—sit back, take a deep breath and relax.

WordPress acquires Poster for iOS

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Tom Witkin built a beautiful app in Poster and I’m really happy for him. Poster is an app that I’ve used and tested since it first came out, and it’s still my favorite. However, I worry that the folks at Wordpress will ruin it. They shouldn’t try to incorporate what Tom built into the official Wordpress app, they should throw theirs away and make Poster the new official app.

iOS 7

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There is no doubt that iOS 7 is a great looking operating system. In fact, I liked everything that I saw, except the icons on the home screen. I don’t know what it is, but they seemed kind of odd to me.

App Camp for girls

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App Camp for Girls wants to address the gender imbalance among software developers by giving girls the chance to learn how to build apps, to be inspired by women instructors, and to get exposure to software development as a career. Our goal is to grow our non-profit organization into a national force, with programs in multiple cities, helping thousands of girls.

Much respect to Jean MacDonald.

iOS wish list from a non-techie

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By non-techie, I mean she isn’t an engineer, programmer, analyst or reporter. It’s pretty clear she has a good handle on things though.

Line 6 Sonic Port for iPhone and iPad

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Sonic Port delivers inspiring guitar tones and best-in-class audio quality on your iPod touch, iPhone and iPad. Jam with the tones of your favorite artists, connect keyboards and speakers to create your mobile recording studio, or plug into your amp and play live. Every time, Sonic Port gives you pro-quality sound with GarageBand, Line 6 Mobile POD, Jammit and other CoreAudio music apps.

This looks incredible. I’m getting one.

Windows isn’t a feature, it’s a liability

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Rene Ritchie:

With these latest commercials, Microsoft shows they’re no closer to learning that lesson today than they were back with Bill Gates and the Tablet PC. They’re still mired in Windows and in Office. They’re so afraid of letting go of past success that they’ll take future failure instead. They’ll refuse to compromise on anything other than making the user experience horribly, needlessly, compromised.

That pretty much says it all.