iPad

“Do Not Disturb” will fix itself

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Do Not Disturb scheduling feature will resume normal functionality after January 7, 2013. Before this date, you should manually turn the Do Not Disturb feature on or off.

Stealing from developers

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Both of these services are dangerous for app developers because they offer simple, one-tap installs of pirated apps and do not require that devices have been jailbroken in order to do so. This is an enormous problem, as it opens up the arena for their use from the relatively small fraction of users with jailbroken devices — as was the case with Installous — to any unscrupulous users of iPhones and iPads.

Don’t steal from developers people. Bad karma shit will come back on you.

17.4 million devices activated on Christmas Day

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In order to appreciate the magnitude of new devices activated on Christmas Day, Flurry established a baseline using the average from the first 20 days of December. Over this period, daily activations averaged around 4.0 million per day, with variance of a few hundred thousand in either direction per day. On Christmas Day, activations soared to more than 17.4 million, a 332% increase over the December baseline. By comparison, Christmas Day 2011 held the previous single-day record, having reached 6.8 million device activations. Christmas 2012 is more than 2.5 times larger than Christmas 2011, which surpassed its own baseline by more than 300%.

There are lots of happy people out there.

The coolest iOS alarm clock

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I use the alarm on my iPhone a lot when I travel, but I have never seen any alarm look this cool. You just move your finger up and down to change the time and swipe right to turn it on. This is the epitome of doing one thing and doing one thing right.

When is weak demand for your product good? When you’re Amazon

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Bartley now models Amazon selling just 6 million units this quarter of the Fire, down from 8 million previously, and 10.5 million for all of 2013, down from 12.5 million previously. While his investigation of the supply chain last month suggest component orders had risen for both October and November by double digits, he now thinks total Q4 component orders fell by more than 20%.

And

Writes Bartley, “Although weak Kindle Fire de- mand is potentially positive for profitability, it does imply that Amazon is still struggling to compete against Apple (AAPL), and may even be seeing competition from Google.

Amazon is selling its products at cost or even below cost. The more products they sell, the more money they lose. I’ve said it before — I don’t believe this is a sustainable or a wise strategy.

iOS 6.0.2 released

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According to Apple the update “fixes a bug that could impact Wi-Fi.”

Cubasis for iPad

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Cubasis is Steinberg’s streamlined, multitouch sequencer for the iPad. Specially designed for quick and easy operation, Cubasis makes recording, editing and mixing a breeze. Record tracks in CD audio quality, and edit your music with the Key and Sample Editors, while the included mixer and audio effects polish your song to perfection. Cubasis comes loaded with dozens of virtual instrument sounds which can be played in real time using the virtual keyboard and drum pads. Cubasis’ projects can be even opened in Cubase under Windows and OS X! Cubasis places touch-intuitive production tools in your hands, opening up a new world of possibilities for your creativity.

Great looking app.

Anytune 3.5

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Anytune has been updated with a number of new features.

Office no longer an iOS must-have

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Derek Kessler:

Had Microsoft launched Office on the iPhone and iPad early on, they could have furthered the impression that Office was a must-have for anybody serious about anything, even on iOS. But they let years pass, and now Microsoft’s flagship applications aren’t so must-have anymore and Apple isn’t overly eager to accommodate them. It’s easy to imagine that four years ago when preparing to launch the iPhone App Store Apple may have been more willing to negotiate with Microsoft to get flagship apps like Word and Excel on the smartphone. But today? Apple’s doing just fine without them.

Spot on.

Google Maps and the battle for Google’s future

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Ian Betteridge:

The fact that Google is, on one hand, creating great applications for iOS and, on the other, fighting tooth and nail for market share against it makes me wonder if the company is divided into two factions, with a battle raging between them over its future direction. On one side, there’s the group who want to promote Android as a coherent product, and beat Apple into a pulp with it.

[…]

On the other side, there’s the “Pragmatists”. These are the ones who realise Google makes its money from advertising, not directly from selling products.

As Ian points out later, Google’s iOS apps have to be good. They’re a company that makes its money from advertising.

Samsung exec: “I’ve always used Mac, an iPhone, and an iPad”

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Young Sohn, president and chief strategy officer in the US:

OK, so think about Apple compared to Samsung. I use a Mac, actually, at home. I’ve always used Mac, an iPhone, and an iPad. I also have the Galaxy. So I’m a great example.

If you look at the strengths of Apple, in a way it’s not the product per se. It’s that consumers like their ecosystem such as iCloud. I like that my family 6,000 miles away in Korea is able to see my schedule and see all of my contacts and photos. It is sticky, but it is a proprietary architecture.

Android is like “having a motor scooter at the Indianapolis 500”

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Digging specifically at Android, McNamee said that it is akin to “having a motor scooter at the Indianapolis 500.”

“I watch what they have done with Android and I’m flabbergasted because their market share in units is so high but look at the profit share,” McNamee said. “Apple’s profit share is 75 or 80% because Android has been managed essentially to make it a profitless prosperity. Right now, if Google is not careful, Android will be Samsung or Samsung will be Android.”

I laughed. Hard.

Tablet-native journalism

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Felix Salmon wrote a very smart article on Tablet-native journalism. I don’t agree with everything he said, but it’s worth a read.

Australian government may be the data source for Maps debacle

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Richard Chirgwin at The Register:

To be blunt, there is a place called Mildura whose location is given as exactly where Apple put it – at least, there is in an authoritative source for such a location.

[…]

In this case, the Australian Gazetteer – the authoritative list of 300,000-plus placenames, complete with coordinates – includes two Milduras. One is the “real” town, the other is an entry for “Mildura Rural City”, coordinates -34.79724 141.76108.

This just keeps getting crazier.

Apple updates Maps, fixing one problem in Australia

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Charles Arthur for The Guardian:

Apple has updated its new maps system after police in Mildura, Australia, said a number of people trying to find the town of 30,000 people became hopelessly lost in the bush in scorching temperatures.

Great that this problem was fixed because it was so serious. I hate to think how many others are still out there.

Redesigning Notification Center

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Alex Saretzky took a shot at redesigning the Notification Center for Mac and iOS. I really like some of his ideas. Tip: Click on the iPhone to play the movie and click on the links to see animations of his ideas.

Australian police warn tourists not to use iOS 6 Maps

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Mildura Police are urging motorists to be careful when relying on the mapping system on the Apple i-phones operating on the iOS 6 system after a number of motorists were directed off the beaten track in recent weeks.

Local Police have been called to assist distressed motorists who have become stranded within the Murray-Sunset National Park after following directions on their Apple i-phone.

My parents are heading to Australia on vacation in January for more than a month. They will be driving around the country, but I’ll have to recommend they purchase a different mapping system. This is just terrible.

Order one iPad, get five

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Alexa’s boyfriend got an iPad for Christmas from his mother. Well, that’s not quite true. His mother ordered one iPad, and had it shipped to him. What arrived on their doorstep was a very large and heavy box that was big enough to hold five iPads. Because it did.

Thanks Best Buy.

On writing on the iPad

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Jason Snell explains why writing on the iPad is so different for him than writing on a Mac.

More on “the Steve Jobs patent”

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Matt Macari for The Verge:

The internet was abuzz yesterday with reports that Apple’s infamous “bounce-back” patent, US 7,469,381, was “tentatively invalidated” by the US Patent Office. That’s one of the patents Samsung was found to infringe, and any action by the USPTO will have major consequences. Unfortunately, all those reports were extremely premature —patents can’t be “tentatively invalid,” just like people can’t be “tentatively dead.”

Great explanation of what’s going on and the process involved.