Facebook on Thursday launched Camera, a new standalone iPhone app for browsing your friends’ photos and sharing new ones of your own. Were Instagram owned by anyone else, it might be sweating bullets right now.
Facebook Camera puts a thin strip of your Camera Roll photos at the top, with your photo news feed taking up the rest of the screen.
In my time at Macworld, I’ve reviewed and tested numerous iOS apps. I’ve also reported on the challenges that iOS developers face. But it was only recently that I built my first iOS app, along with developer (and frequent Macworld contributor) Marco Tabini. The experience left me with insights into the iOS development process that I probably would never have otherwise discovered, and a better understanding of what the developers of many of our favorite apps go through on a regular basis.
Though part of what makes iOS great is the fact that the screen can become any sort of interface at all, designing a finger-driven custom interface that both looks good (and unique) and is immediately understandable by new users requires considerable effort.Given the growing impact phones and tablets are having on Apple's bottom line, it shouldn't be that surprising to see the annual Worldwide Developers Conference take on more of a mobile focus. In recent years, Apple has used the week-long get-together for developers to unveil brand new iPhones and significant upgrades to iOS.
Nobody knows for certain what's on the docket for this year's installment of WWDC, other than the fact that iOS and Mac OS X will be the topic of more than 100 technical sessions hosted by Apple engineers. But with Apple having already previewed Mountain Lion, the next major version of its Mac operating system due out this summer, it stands to reason that a new version of iOS could get a preview of its own at WWDC. And with WWDC's June 11 kick-off keynote looming on the calendar, I've started thinking about the features I hope to see included in the next iteration of Apple’s multitouch-focused operating system. (Note that my colleague Dan Moren already shared some thoughts on what iOS 6 might mean for Maps; you’ll want to make sure you read those, too.)
Drag your libraries. Image source: MashduoMine was originally a mixed marriage: I'm a Mac, my wife was a PC. Years ago, though, after yet another virus had rendered my beloved's Windows machine unusable, I insisted she switch. (She did so begrudgingly, but she's since become a contented Mac user.) I smoothed the transition by copying all of her old files from her Windows PC to her Mac, but some tracks from her iTunes library, for whatever reason, didn't made the leap.
At the time, we didn't bother to figure out which tracks were missing, but for my wife's birthday this year, I decided I'd finally find those tracks and bring them over to her Mac. I'd assumed it would be a painstaking process: I'd need to look for a couple hundred songs -- out of thousands -- that existed on the old PC but not her Mac. And, of course, her library has grown substantially since the switch, so comparing the two libraries would be far from simple.
Image source: LogitechLogitech's $400 UE Air Speaker gets an awful lot right. The UE in its name stands for Ultimate Ears, the formerly independent headphones company Logitech acquired back in 2008; Air refers to Apple's wireless AirPlay technology, which the speaker uses superbly to play streamed music. Add to that a hideaway iPhone/iPod/iPad dock cradle, brilliantly easy setup, and very nice audio, and you get an impressive, easy-to-recommend speaker.
The UE Air is sleek and shiny, sporting a piano-black finish on the sides and back, with a black-mesh front. (The downside to piano black is that it's no good at hiding fingerprints.) But you'll need some room for the Air, as it's nearly two feet wide. Specifically, the curvy speaker measures 23.1 inches wide, 9.2 inches tall and 9.2 inches deep at its deepest point. It weighs just under ten pounds.
Apple says that this year's WWDC will focus on both iOS and OS X Mountain Lion, with more than 100 technical sessions led by Apple engineers, along with the annual Apple Design Awards. More than 1,000 Apple engineers will be on hand, offering code-level assistance and other advice on developing for the Mac, iPhone, and iPad.
If your iPhone pops up a message demanding you configure some security settings, don’t panic. Apple confirmed Monday to Macworld that such prompts, requiring that you select and answer three security questions before grabbing apps (or even app updates) from the App Store, are indeed legitimate. The same security message appears in the desktop version of iTunes and seemingly applies to all purchases throughout the iTunes Store.
If your iPhone suddenly stops taking a charge, but everything else keeps working, there may be a fix. I know someone with firsthand experience of just such an issue, and can offer advice that may solve your iPhone's charging problem.
Because I want to ensure that I don't unintentionally void his warranty in print, I'm going to protect the anonymity of the individual at the center of this story, and call him Flex Riedman.
Perhaps the only way to ensure you read every story about one of those iOS apps for deferred reading of long-form Web content is to use one of those very apps to keep track of all the stories. The latest news comes not from Instapaper or Readability, but rather, the app formerly known as Read It Later: The developers of the app announced Tuesday that they've officially renamed it Pocket, eliminated its price tag, and released an update with new features, too.
Besides aesthetic improvements in the new version of Pocket -- like a revamped, less-cluttered interface that's also better suited for Retina display devices -- the update adds video and image filters. If you save a mix of content from the Web, the app can let you tap between your saved videos, images, and articles, so that you can now focus on whichever kind of content you wish to consume.
Still stressed about theFlashback Trojan horse, that insidious bit of Mac malware that has infected hundreds of thousands of computers? Late Friday, Apple released the creatively-namedFlashback Malware Removal Tool, which the company says “removes the most common variants of the Flashback malware.”
This is not the same as theJava update that Apple releasedearlier last week, which also removes Flashback.
Earlier this week, Instagram--the beloved iPhone app for snapping, filtering, and sharing photographs--arrived on Android phones, nearly a year and half after the iPhone app's initial release. Until that time, folks using Android phones could only look on longingly as their iPhone-wielding friends snapped and shared photos on the growing network, which topped 30 million members before making the leap to Android.
And Instagram's gradual iOS-to-Android transition is not unusual. It took almost a year for Angry Birds to make its pig-hating way from iOS to Android, and twice that long for Words With Friends. So it's clearly not uncommon for hugely successful apps to launch on the iPhone, only to show up on Android many moons later. But for apps to make the opposite leap--from Android to iPhone--is exceedingly uncommon. There are two key reasons why that dichotomy exists: money and simplicity.
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