Whoa! As of this writing (noon EST) Apple stock has reached a new high of US$493.85, which is a record share price. It also gives the company a market capitalization of $465 billion, which exceeds the combined totals of Google and Microsoft.

Apple passed Microsoft in Market Cap back in May of 2010. At the current price, Apple is comfortably ahead of Exxon Mobil, which has a market cap of about $400 million billion.

Just yesterday we reported that Apple had gained $100 in share price since Steve Jobs died last October, but those numbers are already outdated.

Apple stock soars, company worth more than Google, Microsoft combined originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 09 Feb 2012 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Virgin Australia Airlines First Officer David Kloster is suing his employer for almost one million dollars, claiming he hurt his back while lugging around almost 40 pounds of charts and manuals. Documents filed with the Queensland Supreme Court on Kloster's behalf state that the airline "...failed to have in place a system of work whereby charts and rules could have been left on board its aircraft or kept electronically on an iPad." The lawsuit has been reported by the Daily Telegraph in Australia.

Kloster said he was injured lifting his flight bag while getting on a bus in 2009. He is currently suing for future economic loss, medical expenses and other costs.

The airline has not officially responded to the suit, but spokesperson Emma Copeman has said "Virgin Australia takes its obligations with respect to protecting the health and safety of those involved in its operations very seriously." Virgin Australia has said it plans to switch to iPads in the cockpit this year.

One obvious problem for Kloster's legal case is that his accident happened in December of 2009. The iPad did not go on sale in Australia until May of 2010.

[Thanks to TUAW reader Marty R. for the tip]

Australian pilot sues because he doesn't have an iPad originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Evi is the sort-of Siri clone. The $0.99 iPhone app is aimed mainly at people who don't have an iPhone 4S and want a Siri-like voice control experience.

When I tried Evi some weeks ago it was a complete disaster. In a week of testing I could not connect once because of server issues. The developers said they were adding server capacity, and it seems they have. In extensive tests of the app this week, I only had one time when Evi was busy and couldn't respond. That is a great improvement.

I found a lot to like now that the app is working, and some things that Evi excels at. When I asked Evi who the Chancellor of Germany was, I got the correct information, as well as pictures. Siri also got the question right, but no pictures. I thought the Evi experience was a bit better.

When I asked for the best hamburger in Omaha, I got referred to a web site about Omaha Hamburger Joints from Urban Spoon. Siri rated the best ones based on reviews from Yelp. I thought Siri was more helpful, but Evi does include a web browser so you can stay in the app. Sometimes Evi does figure out the best local favorites without sending you to the web, but it seems hit and miss.

For current weather Evi is second rate. When I asked for the weather in Phoenix it suggested the National Weather Service Web Page. Siri answered me directly and brought up the iPhone weather app.

Where Evi really shines is if you ask a question with rather complicated syntax. Asking "Who is older, Barack Obama or Michelle Obama", Evi parses it all and gets it right answering the question directly. Siri gets you a Wolfram Alpha page with information, and you can scroll down to see the relative ages yourself (the President is 50, while FLOTUS turned 48 last month). Evi wins that round on presentation.

Both apps use Nuance speech recognition, and it is excellent on both Evi and Siri. Evi still has a lot of negative reviews on the App Store because it simply didn't work for weeks. Now that it's pretty much up and running, reviews are getting more positive.

If you have an older iPhone that can run iOS4 or greater, Evi is now a worthwhile investment. It can't interact with your calendar, use reminders, or wake you up, but it is very good at answering questions. If you have an iPhone 4S, Evi is probably worth the $0.99 because it does do some things better than Siri.

Of course both apps are early in their development. Siri is still called a beta by Apple, and Siri has also had some server issues rendering it unusable at times. I'm glad I took a second look at Evi, and suggest you do the same. Check the galleries for some direct Evi-Siri comparisons.

Gallery: Evi take 2

A second look (and listen) to Evi voice recognition for iPhone originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

One of my favorite navigation apps for the iPhone, Where To?, has been updated to include more pictures, more reviews, and some videos of selected destinations.

Reviews and media are sourced from users and Google. The app features 700 categories of destinations, and more than 2,400 brands (e.g. In-N-Out Burger or Trader Joe's). The app features augmented reality as a US$0.99 option, which uses the camera to superimpose directions over local scenery. The app has added direct links to GPS navigation systems Sygic, Waze, Navmii, Navfree and NAVIGON Urban (German App Store only). The app also supports TomTom, Navigon, MotionX and of course, Google Maps.

This latest version has added support for state National Parks in the US, Canada and Australia. The app itself operates in 10 languages, so it's going to be helpful for users around the globe. I did a drive-around test and found it worked reliably and smoothly. I sent a couple of destinations to my Navigon app, and that worked flawlessly. I think the app is useful in your home town, but really comes into its own when traveling and looking for that special restaurant, hotel, or even the nearest pharmacy or hardware store.

Where To? version 4.1 is a free update for anyone who has version 2 or higher. Owners of version 1.0 will have to buy this latest version if they want the upgrade. The app is $2.99 and the augmented reality feature is another $0.99. Where To? 4.1 requires iOS 4.0 or greater. I've included some screen shots of Where To? in action.

Gallery: Where To? destination finder for iOS

Where To? for iPhone updated with more reviews, pictures, and now videos originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 07 Feb 2012 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Do you want to share files easily and quickly? Then take a look at Droplr, which has been around for some time and recently hit the Mac App Store in an improved version 2.

Droplr is free and easy way to share images, documents and other files. You can run it from a web browser or the Mac app which lives in your menu bar. To share a file, simply drag it onto the menu bar item and it's uploaded to Droplr's servers. When the upload is complete, it copies a short URL to your Mac's clipboard, which you can give to anyone you like.

There is a 25 MB upload limit for individual files, and storage is free up to 1 GB. There is a paid plan in the works, but no details are being offered yet. The app also supports plug-ins so you can quickly share from apps like iPhoto, Photoshop CS5, Firefox, Safari, Google Chrome, your address book and even PhotoBooth.

Things I'd like to see include a favorites list of contacts for sending files so I don't have to go through pasting the URL into mail, and I think the 25 MB file size limit is too low. I have some Photoshop files that easily exceed that.

There are some similarities to Dropbox, another excellent file sharing utility that gives you 2 GB for free and doesn't limit individual file size. On the other hand, Droplr is simpler to use and aimed primarily at sharing with other people. Dropbox can be used to share files, of course, but is more about storage and sharing across machines.

Droplr offers support for Windows machines and has an iOS app in development. Of course any computer can use it via the web, with no app needed.

I've had no problems with using Droplr, and when I asked a question at the support site it was instantly answered. If you like to share files, give Droplr a look. It will be interesting to see how the service progresses and improves.

Daily Mac app: Droplr originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 06 Feb 2012 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Several OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard users are reporting that Power PC-coded apps no longer work after applying Security Update 2012-001.

The Apple support boards are full of stories about Rosetta apps crashing when any command is selected from the menu bar. Complaints seem heaviest from those running older versions of Microsoft Office, Quicken, FileMaker and Photoshop. Some users have recommended unofficial workarounds for the problem (attempt at your own risk), and it isn't known if Apple will fix the issue.

Rosetta was deep-sixed in Lion, but was working fine in Snow Leopard until the security update was issued on Wednesday. Rosetta was introduced in Mac OS X 10.4.4; the code-translation layer allows apps that require a PowerPC Mac to operate on Intel-based Macs.

Meanwhile, this week's Lion update had its own share of issues, with a number of users seeing strange graphics on screen and getting caught in a loop where applications would not close or re-open. Fortunately, it seems that applying the 10.7.3 combo update fixed the issue for many users.

Users report Rosetta problems after Security Update 2012-001 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Updated to clarify that Avid Media Composer is cross-platform. Avid Studio on the desktop is a Windows-only product.

Take that, Apple! Avid has just released an iPad iMovie competitor called Avid Studio. The US$4.99 app is a scaled-down version of Avid's pro video editing tools.

Avid Studio features a timeline and storyboard, plus some iPad-friendly gestures so you can scale images and videos. You can arrange your edits on the timeline for special effects like picture-in-picture.The app also offers 3D animations and transitions, and video tracks can be composited.

Avid Studio lets you export a project to the Avid Studio app for the PC via iCloud, and you can share your finished project via YouTube, Facebook or email. Videos not shot with the iPad camera can be imported with the iPad Camera Connection Kit. The app is supposedly compatible with the iPad 1 (unlike Apple's iMovie), but iTunes reviews suggest that it is not stable on the older hardware.

While Avid's new iPad app is clearly a consumer tool and not a pro video editor, it does show some commitment from the company to Apple's platforms, and may serve as a 'gateway drug' for pros who are considering the Avid suite as an alternative to Final Cut Pro X. The initial poor reception for the release of Final Cut Pro X for the Mac last summer, which dropped many features and angered several professional customers, has provided an opening for alternative products.

Avid (and also Adobe, with its Premiere Pro product) stepped into the FCPX breach and offered discounts to FCPX users who wanted to switch to the pro products on the desktop. Avid's most basic desktop suite runs only on a Windows PC and costs $169, but the company's pro app Media Composer is hundreds (or thousands) of dollars more, and does run on the Mac. Final Cut Pro X is $299 and requires an App Store-friendly version of Mac OS X.

Apple updated FCPX this week to bring back some features that were lost in the FCP7 to FCPX transition, but I think some video professionals and serious hobbyists feel the momentum is swinging away from Apple. [Award-winning editor Walter Murch isn't among the naysayers, at least not anymore. -Ed.]

Avid Studio for iPad will be $4.99 during a 30-day introductory period, and $8.00 after that. The app is a 30 MB download, and requires an iPad running iOS 5.0 or greater. Apple offers its own iOS version of iMovie for $4.99, which has been generally well reviewed.

Gallery: Avid Studio

Avid Studio takes iPad video editing to the next level (Updated) originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 02 Feb 2012 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

I've just spent a pleasant hour exploring Saturn, which is free for a short time in the Mac App Store.

The GUI is based on LCARS (Library Computer Access/Retrieval System) featured on some of the Star Trek shows and films.

The app has a massive amount of data, and it's more than 1 GB to download. What you get are hundreds of images of Saturn and its moons, plus screens and screens of information and diagrams. There's truly a huge treasure trove of topics covered here.

Visually, the app is a treat, and it's easy to figure out how to navigate, even if you're not a Star Trek fan. I wasn't wild about the sound effects every time I clicked on something, but they can easily be muted.

Author Gilorien Barnhardt says he spent more than a year putting this app together, and it is easy to see why. If you're interested in the solar system, especially this unique ringed planet, mosey on over to the Mac App Store and download this app. Check out some of what the app offers in the gallery below.

Gallery: Saturn astronomy app for Mac

Daily Mac App: Saturn originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Koss headphones have been around a long time. I remember doing some pro recording with them in the 70s, and I know they go back at least to the early 60s. The company isn't stuck in the past, though, so it has announced a new version of the popular Porta Pro headset. It's called the Porta Pro KTC, which stands for Koss Touch Control. It's aimed at all your iOS devices, and allows you to shuffle songs, adjust volume and make calls from a small controller built into the headphone cord.

The Porta Pro is an on-ear design, featuring a collapsible headband and a carrying case. Last time I listened to the Porta Pros I found the sound quite smooth and the headphones were very comfortable.

There is no price announced for the Porta Pros yet, but the current model without the controller retails for US$50.00. The KTC model is expected to hit stores in early Spring.

[via Engadget]

Koss adds iPhone remote to Porta Pro headphones originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Bill Gates's Microsoft was a long time Apple rival, as well as a respected competitor; the two companies also collaborated many times, including Microsoft's role as one of the original Macintosh third-party developers.

The Telegraph reports that a letter to Steve Jobs from Gates was kept on Jobs's nightstand during the Apple co-founder's final days. Gates and Jobs had met to reminisce and re-connect in the months before Steve's death due to complications from cancer in October 2011.

Gates didn't reveal many details about what was in the letter, but he said, "I told Steve about how he should feel great about what he had done and the company he had built. I wrote about his kids, whom I had got to know."

After Jobs died, Gates got a phone call from Laurene Powell Jobs, Steve's widow. She said, "Look, this biography (the Walter Issacson book) really doesn't paint a picture of the mutual respect you had."

She then told Gates that the letter had meant so much to Steve that he kept it by his bed.

Gates appeared in a video interview last week where he also discussed the complex relationship between himself and Steve.

Thanks to Daniel Jalkut.

Steve Jobs kept letter from Bill Gates on his nightstand originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sun, 29 Jan 2012 14:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Update: Former Siri director responds to the Washington Post story. Reuters was the original source of the error around Siri bandwidth usage.

"How Siri is ruining your cellphone service." That's the searing headline from the Washington Post in an article by Paul Farhi. Farhi claims that "Siri's dirty little secret is that she's a bandwidth guzzler, the digital equivalent of a 10-miles-per-gallon Hummer H1."

Where's he coming up with this? Apparently, the "Siri eats bandwidth" claim is based on a study by Arieso that reports that iPhone 4S owners consume twice as much cellular data as iPhone 4 users and 3 times as much as iPhone 3G users. Recent Android phones are also chewing up twice as much data as the iPhone 3G, while 3G and 4G mobile hotspots are by far the biggest download hogs (26x the baseline).

At least in the press release summary of the study, however, there's no mention of Siri at all; just the increased usage for the 4S, which just happens to support a faster download standard on AT&T's network. Our sister site Engadget helped put that study in perspective by pointing out that Arieso has a vested interest in the results of the research. We've asked for a full copy of the report to see what, if any, linkage there is between Siri and data volume.

[Ars Technica did a round of testing when the iPhone 4S came out, and the results showed that an average Siri user might add just 10MB of data consumption per month due to voice queries. Considering that the high-end AT&T data plan provides two gigabytes of traffic, that 10MB would represent only 0.5% of the full allocation, or 1% of a half-used allowance -- unlikely in the extreme to result in a doubling of data usage. -Ed.]

If we take the study at face value, though, why more data on the 4S? The likely answer hasn't much to do with Siri and a lot more to do with the profile of the iPhone 4S buyer.

The people who buy the latest phone are also the power users who take the most advantage of their devices. We've seen that happen before with new technology, and once people stop amazing themselves and their friends, the consumption of bandwidth drops off. I haven't seen any convincing data that says the iPhone 4S inherently uses more data than an iPhone 4, and iOS 5 iCloud features, also available on the iPhone 4 and 3GS, probably play a role in increased bandwidth use.

As for Siri, most of the heavy lifting goes on at the Apple servers, where your query is translated into data and then sent back to your phone in a quick burst. Streaming radio, Netflix and a host of other apps can use way more bandwidth, and they are utilizing the network for minutes or hours at a time, not seconds.

Of course Siri is on every iPhone 4S, so it is getting used more than some 3rd-party apps, but it's hard to believe that the average user doing perhaps 2-3 queries a day is destroying our cellular infrastructure. GigaOm this morning also poured cold water on the Post story, and there will probably be more to come.

One thing is for sure. Smartphones, and the iPhone in particular, are using more data than the dumb phones of old. Compare that to the internet connections in our homes, where Netflix has been identified as the biggest user of bandwidth in the U.S. It's up the internet providers, both wired and wireless, to keep growing their networks so they can continue to charge those premium rates; it's also up to Washington regulators and cellular carriers to make efficient use of bandwidth and future spectrum technologies.

Readers, are you heavy Siri users, and are you destroying our cellular networks?

Siri probably isn't the bandwidth hog the WaPo warned you about originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

With iWeb slowly fading into obscurity, Mac users who want to generate websites without a lot of trouble have been turning to apps such as Sandvox. The app was updated today to version 2.5, which is free for users version 2.0 and up.

Prominently featured is a slideshow object that lets users drag a collection of photos to the app, with options for timing, transitions and caption control adjustable in the Object inspector. The traditional Photo Grid now supports displayed captions derived from page contents.

The app also has added a reworked publishing engine and better compatibility for .mkv files and Quick Look support. Several Lion-friendly features have been added, including including Resume, Autosave, Versions and Fullscreen mode. Sandvox is not as easy to use as iWeb, but it trades a bit of complexity for far more power and control over the features of your website. It ships with several templates that make site creation fast and easy, or you can modify those templates to fit your needs.

Sandvox is available in the app store for US $79.99 or directly from Karelia Software.

Sandvox for Mac updated with slide shows and more Lion features originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 26 Jan 2012 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Pocket Universe has been one of my favorite astronomy apps for the iPhone. Take it outside to easily identify what's up using the charts and the built-in augmented reality features.

With an update that hit the app store yesterday, you can now talk to Pocket Universe, using Siri speech recognition by tapping on the microphone icon on the built-in keyboard. You can say things like "Where is Jupiter?" or "What is the phase of the moon?" and so forth.

I tried several queries like, "What time does Mars rise?" and "Find M42 in Orion." It all worked very well, and certainly beats typing in a dark backyard. If the app needs to talk back to you, it does so in a synthesized voice. The voice quality is a little rough, but it's slated to be improved.

Author John Kennedy says he hopes to add voice-driven weather forecasts and other astronomical tidbits soon. Without the new voice commands, the app has a lot of features, including a 10,000 star catalog, as well as lots of deep sky objects. You can track the International Space Station and contains updated news sections and links to topics via Wikipedia.

If you have the app, you'll get a free update with the voice functionality. If not, the app is US$2.99 and well worth it. Pocket Universe requires iOS4.2 or later and is a 43 MB download.

Gallery: Pocket Universe

Daily iPhone App: Pocket Universe originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 25 Jan 2012 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Siri has been a big hit for Apple, but as we all know, it runs only on an iPhone 4S. I've been expecting some Siri knock-offs to appear, and now one has that can be used on any iPhone and even the iPad if you don't mind not seeing it full screen.

The app is called Evi by True Knowledge. It's US$0.99 and runs on any iDevice with iOS 4.0 or greater. "Run" is a bit of a misnomer. Evi's speech recognition is powered by Nuance, just like Siri, and the recognition part is first rate. But that's where the good news ends.

Evi has not successfully responded to a single spoken query I've made since yesterday afternoon. Generally the app sits there for awhile, then reports that it is "Thinking about it," followed by "Let me see'" and then, inevitably, "I'm having trouble getting a response from my servers. You might want to try again in a minute." Actually, I don't ever want to try again. Ever.

Reviews at the app store are ugly, with the majority being negative and some are outright hostile. You would think an app maker would have some degree of preparation for what is sure to be a popular offering. I can understand some failures, even Siri fails on a semi-regular basis, but Siri was labelled beta when it came out. Evi is supposed to be ready to go.

This is an app that Apple should quickly pull, not because it competes with Siri (hardly), but because it is simply a complete and utter failure. In frustration I asked Evi if I can get my $0.99 back. Evi replied, "Bear with me" followed by "hang on," "I'm on it" and finally the server failure warning. I guess that would be a "no." Remember, you can't spell 'evil' without Evi.

Check the gallery for some screen grabs of Evi not answering any of my questions.

Gallery: Evi for iPhone

Siri clone Evi is off to a very bad start originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Epson has released a slick little iOS app called Epson iProjection (free), which allows iPhones, iPads and iPod touches running iOS 4.2 or later to connect to certain Epson projectors wirelessly.

Epson says the app is ideal for business users who need to travel light yet maintain the capability of presenting with a full-featured projector. The app also should be of use to teachers in the classroom. Epson iProjection is compatible with applications like Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Apple's Keynote, plus JPEG and PNG image files.

As for compatible projectors, you'll find a full list here.

One disadvantage of the app is the inability to play either animations or video. It might have been nicer if Epson had simply decided to support AirPlay in their projectors, but that would require additional hardware in the projector. Perhaps it is something we'll see in the future from Epson or others.

Epson launches wireless iOS projection app originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 23 Jan 2012 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

I love maps. I've had printed atlases for years, I have globes all over the house, and I had some of the early mapping applications for the Mac like DeLorme Street Atlas. Sadly, DeLorme abandoned the Mac years ago.

Suffice it to say that any new mapping application will get my attention right away. Let me direct your attention to UpNext HD Maps. It's a free app for the iPad that gives you searchable, zoomable maps with 50 of the cities rendered in 3D, and 23 with extremely enhanced details.

You can click on a building and see what businesses are inside. You can search for recreation, dining, shopping and more. The app is connected to Yelp so you can often find reviews of places that might interest you. There is also a deal finder which will show you any discounts at nearby locations.

The app requires an Internet connection, but can pre-cache recent places you've been when you're offline. In terms of performance the app was pretty peppy on a Wi-Fi connection, but frankly it would be very slow on most 3G connections. The data needed to render buildings realistically in 3D is not small.

You can find maps of everywhere in the United States, but you will only get the detailed 3D renderings in Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Fort Lauderdale, Honolulu, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Paul, and Washington DC.

I did have a few crashes when using the app, and I noticed that once you venture outside the center city area, you quickly lose the 3D display. There are big gaps in information, so don't expect detailed info everywhere you click. Even so, this is a worthwhile app to play around with, and the price is exactly right. I'm hopeful that the app will get more stable, add more information, and include more cities.

The app works with any iPad and requires IOS 4.0 or later. It's a 16 MB download.

I've grabbed some screen shots which you can browse below.

Gallery: UpNext 3D Maps

Daily iPad App: UpNext 3D delivers free maps originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 23 Jan 2012 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

There's a pretty high level of excitement flowing from Thursday's arrival of the iTunes U app. Harvard University is now adding its science + cooking lectures from its school of Engineering and Science for what will likely be an interesting public offering. Titles like 'Olive Oil and Viscosity' and 'Meat Glue Mania' sound intriguing.

Anyone with an iPad or iPhone can use the app and access the free classes on iTunes U. Having this new standalone app should be a boon to users and educators. The Inside Higher Ed website is highlighting material from Harrisburg Community College, where there are free courses in differential equations and astronomy. It's the first iTunes U offering from a community college.

Apple approached some major educational institutions last year to start preparing the courses, and the app contains content from places like Duke, Cornell and Yale universities. Older versions of iTunes U, introduced in 2006, offered audio and video podcasts, but this new app provides self-contained courses allowing users to download handouts and worksheets they can reference while listening to a recorded lecture.

Colleges enthused as iTunes classes go live originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sat, 21 Jan 2012 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

From the land of Shakespeare we have a remodeled hotel that has gone Mac in every room. The Menzies Welcombe Hotel in Stratford-upon-Avon is now about as tech-friendly as a hotel can be, especially for a hotel built in 1866.

All guest rooms now contain a Mac, a flat screen TV, internet connections, Skype and Wi-Fi along with something called 'power showers'. There's even a helicopter landing pad. Shakespeare would be impressed.

The Welcombe is not the only upscale hotel to embrace Macs. The Fountainenbleau in Miami also offers 20" iMacs in every room, as well as docking station-equipped alarm clocks for iPods and other iOS devices. The iMacs can be used to book activities and make reservations while you are at the hotel, although they are in guest account mode and don't allow users to access USB devices or save files locally.

This is all a long way from the crummy clock radio I'm used to seeing in lots of the places I stay. Hopefully more and more hotels will use Macs to enhance the whole experience of being away from home.

Thanks to loyal TUAW reader Josh for the tip.

Refurbished UK hotel features a Mac in every room originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

There are plenty of photo cropping applications for iOS. Here's a new wrinkle that caught my eye. The app is called AntiCrop, and it's a US $0.99 universal iPad app that does the opposite of cropping a photo. It actually adds new data to the top and sides of an image, allowing you to reframe something that didn't come out right in the first place.

AntiCrop is kind of the reverse of Photoshop's content-aware fill. Content-aware fill allows you to take something out of a photo by blending in nearby pixels. Anti-crop works at the edges, and pretty accurately gives you new data that doesn't look especially fake or blended in after-the-fact.

The application is pretty easy to operate. You load a photo in from your existing photo library, and by dragging on handles at the edge of the photo you reframe the aspect ratio and watch the new pixels fill-in. It's pretty incredible to watch, and most of the time, it works exceedingly well.

You can run into problems if you drag the borders too far away and force the program to fill in pixels that obviously repeat data that is in your image. I only saw that behavior a few times, and when it appeared I was really extending the frame quite a bit, which is asking a lot of the algorithms the program uses.

Another use is to straighten a tilted horizon. Normally we have to crop to fix the edges of the tilted photo, but anti-crop just puts in new data at the edges and the problem is solved. Of course you can do the reverse, to tilt a horizon that was originally shot level.

This is a very clever application that can make sloppily taken pictures come back to life. Like anything, it can be overused, and of course the technology has limitations, but I like AntiCrop for its innovative thinking and low price.

AntiCrop is perfect for when you are on vacation and want to fix some less than ideal photos. I can think of a lot of other uses, too.

The app also runs on an iPhone or a 3rd or 4th generation iPod touch; it requires iOS 3.1 or later. To get a good idea how the app works, take a look at this tutorial video and check my gallery examples below.

Gallery: AntiCrop for iPad

Daily iPad App: AntiCrop extends the edges of your photos originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 18 Jan 2012 21:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Don't get your hopes up about having that controversial Steve Jobs action figure adorning your desk or bookshelf. The Hong Kong businessman behind the product has decided to halt all production of the realistic Jobs doll.

Tandy Cheung of In Icons Productions has announced that the product is no more on the company website. saying the item won't be sold now or in the future. "Unfortunately we have received immense pressure from the lawyers of Apple and Steve Jobs family," he notes.

Cheung originally claimed he wasn't going to be pressured to take the action figure off the market. The legal issues are murky, with some experts claiming selling a likeness of Jobs is legal, and others claiming a sale could be blocked in some countries or jurisdictions.

The Jobs action figure was selling for US $99, and there is quite a lot of other less realistic Jobs memorabilia on eBay.

Realistic Steve Jobs action figure now out of production originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 16 Jan 2012 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Here's some US $0.99 fun for your Monday. MoonWalking is an augmented reality app that superimposes famous scenes from the Apollo 11 mission to the moon in your backyard or a nearby park. You can watch the Eagle land, and walk up to it and around it as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin take their historic walk around the lunar surface. It lets you have Tranquility Base in your backyard.

To get started, you open the app and right away you will hear some of the actual audio from the landing, as the astronauts talk to mission control. You face north, and soon you will see the Eagle dropping into your neighborhood. Pushing the 'next' button takes you to Armstrong climbing down the ladder for his first step onto the moon. Another scene shows you the astronauts exploring the moon, and a final scene is the take off from the moon.

To make it work smoothly, your motions should be deliberate, giving the iPhone time to get your position right in relation to the augmented reality images. You can walk toward the lander or walk around it and see the perspective change. You can grab stills to save and forward to friends, or you can wipe out your local background and see the normal moonscape.

I enjoyed playing with the app, and turning my neighborhood into the scene of a historic event. One negative is that you can't save or share the video of the scenes, which is the best part of what this app does. The stills are fine, but having the videos would be even better.

I've captured some images you can check out in the gallery. MoonWalking is a clever app that combines some whimsy with the motion and position sensing features of the iPhone.

The app is universal, and runs on the iPad 2 as well as the iPhone 4 and 4S. It requires iOS 4.3 or later. Due to the size of the videos, the app is a 53 MB download. Moonwalking is A-OK. Saved videos would make it perfect.

Gallery: MoonWalking for iOS

Daily iPhone app: MoonWalking originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 16 Jan 2012 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Apple published its report on how it is monitoring contractors to meet standards of worker protection and responsibility.

Apple reports that it originated 229 audits throughout its supply chain in 2011, up 80% over 2010, with special emphasis on worker safety and working conditions.

The company notes it has required Apple-designed training programs for more than 1 million supply chain employees. Apple has been criticized in the past for not revealing all the supplier relationships it maintains, and the report now shows a list of 156 companies which represent 97% of Apple's procurement expenditures.

Apple also claims to have made a concerted effort to stop the hiring of underage employees. The audits are said to have resulted in dramatic reductions in underage labor, and the most recent reports says no underage workers were found at final assembly suppliers.

Apple and other consumer electronic product makers have been fiercely criticized about working conditions in the contract plants that assemble electronics products. Monologuist Mike Daisey, who chronicled his observations of labor practices among Apple's supplier firms in his one-man show The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, is featured on this past week's episode of PRI's This American Life, along with the show's production team's investigation into his findings.

If you're interested you can read Apple's full supplier-responsibility report in PDF form.

Apple publishes Supplier Responsibility Progress Report originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 13 Jan 2012 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Just when you thought navigation apps pretty much had all the features you thought you needed, TomTom has thrown some fresh ideas into the mix.

The company is at CES demonstrating an updated navigation app that uses social networks as a source for turn-by-turn directions.

"According to recent studies, the vast majority of iPhone users use Facebook on their iPhone," Corinne Vigreux, Managing Director Consumer at TomTom said. "By integrating Facebook features into our TomTom App we make navigating to places, events and seeing friends even easier."

The app, which will be delivered this quarter, uses Facebook places, events and friends as a source for destinations, and allows drivers to share their destinations and arrival time on Twitter, Facebook, email and SMS text.

The update will be free for current owners of the TomTom iPhone app. Some example screens are below:

Gallery: TomTom v1.10 screen shots

Forthcoming TomTom iPhone app to feature enhanced social integration originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

2012 marks the 100th anniversary of Paramount Pictures, the company that brought you The Ten Commandments, Saturday Night Fever, the new Mission Impossible movie and hundreds of other cinematic treats.

In recognition of this milestone, Paramount100 has arrived on the App Store. P100 is a free, rather massive (376 MB) app with info on most of the Paramount films made in the last century. The app contains a reasonably complete history of the studio, loads of stills and clips from selected Paramount movies, and even some selections from the movie scores.

Unfortunately there are a lot of films missing. Seven Days in May, for example, a classic Oscar-nominated film released by Paramount, is nowhere to be found.

Some of the photos have never been seen before, and make for an interesting browsing experience. The app also contains a studio tour, but it is mainly a map and you can't click on locations to see some of the movie sets and studio interiors, which seems a rather large missed opportunity.

Adding to the misery is that every so often you click and the app demands a Flash player! Uh, this is an iPad app, right? Probably a port.

The app also gives you a chance to watch the movies, providing a helpful link to the iTunes store. Of course, they don't have all the movies Paramount has produced, so sometimes the link goes nowhere. There is also no search function, which, given the amount of material in the app, is downright silly. The app also says you can share content, so I tried to send a still from Forrest Gump to my email account. Nothing ever arrived in my in-box. When I looked at the message I tried to send it didn't contain the still, simply a link to the app at the Apple Store. That's not quite what the app implies you can do.

For all its faults, the app is loaded with information. Casts, crews, Oscar lists and a nice collection of rare stills are there for the browsing.

If you're a movie fan and have an iPad, Paramount100 is a fun trip down memory lane. I'm hoping it will get more complete, add some features, and eliminate any dependence on Flash.

The app is iPad only and requires iOS 4.0 or later. I have some screen shots in the gallery below.

Gallery: Paramount100 iPad app

Daily iPad App: Paramount100 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 10 Jan 2012 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

HipGeo is a free app that can create a sort of travel blog on the fly with as much or as little user input as you like.

It tracks your location, allows you to add comments and photos, and can even playback an animated map of your travels.

You can keep your travel info to yourself as sort of a diary, or share your adventures via Facebook, Twitter or email. Alternatively, publish your info to the world through a web page or using the app itself.

HipGeo also shows posts from people nearby who've elected to make their locations public. I didn't see a lot of activity near me, but I did see some public posts from the bigger nearby cities, and a lot of activity at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

The app works well, and gives you granular control of your privacy ranging from 'keep my travels to myself' or 'let the whole world know where I am and what I am doing.' The app has some safeguards to protect your battery life, because it runs in the background when you activate it. One setting (places) saves your battery by only uploading a new location, while another setting (places and routes) tracks you from moment to moment. It's better to use the latter setting selectively or only if you're plugged in.

HipGeo is an interesting take on location broadcasting, blogging, navigation and social integration. It seems to work as advertised, and is a really effortless way to create a blog of a vacation, or even your daily activities. I think users should take care about publishing photos and locations to the whole world, but if you limit your followers I find HipGeo to be worthwhile for travelers with a preference for sharing.

HipGeo requires iOS 4.0 or greater. It is a 6 MB download. You can see some screenshots in the gallery below.

Gallery: HipGeo travel blog app

HipGeo for iPhone keeps track of your when and where originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 10 Jan 2012 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Lately I've become a big fan of making photo collages. They can be a bit complicated to create in Photoshop or Elements, so we're beginning to see simpler targeted apps appear for both iOS and Mac OSX. We've reviewed one nice app for iOS called Diptic and now I want to turn your attention to TurboCollage for the Mac, now available in the Mac app store.

It's simple to create some pretty stunning photo collages. Drag your photos into the app, and choose from any of 5 layouts. Options include what looks like a pile of photos to more intricate mosaics and jigsaw puzzles. You can decide what photos go where, or let the app randomly shuffle your collection. If your photos are high resolution, you can output preset images as wide as 5260 pixels, or you can set your own size and shape.

The background of the collage can be another photo, or any color you choose from the color picker. You can adjust the width of borders, and render the final image in landscape or portrait orientation. You can overlay text if you want it, with control over the font, color, rotation and drop shadow.

I was impressed with the quality of the output, and you can send your photos directly from the app to Facebook or email.

There are a couple of cons. You don't have any control over the shape of the frames once you choose a layout. That can make it tough to fit in a panorama, although you can scale the image and recenter it. I'd also like to see some more layouts.

Having said all that, this is an excellent app for the photo buff, and it does in minutes what might take hours to do in a high-end image editor. There is a lite version available which is free, but it has some limitations in the number of layouts. It will give you a feel for how the app works. There are also free versions of the app for both the iPad and the iPhone which are comparable in features to the full Mac app and a bargain at no cost.

TurboCollage is US$3.99 for a limited time, a 75% off sale. If you want a quick and easy way to produce some nice artistic collages this is an excellent choice. I've included some sample scenes I created with some of my landscape photos to give you an idea how the app works.

Gallery: TurboCollage for Mac

Daily Mac app: TurboCollage originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 09 Jan 2012 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

iPhone sales are almost always good, and when Apple reports 1st quarter sales on January 24th, all the signs point to some really excellent numbers.

Earlier this week, Verizon CFO Fran Shammo reported 4.2 million iPhone sales, which doubled the company's 3rd quarter numbers. Some analysts estimate AT&T sold about 7 million iPhones, while estimates for Sprint are over 2 million phones. That's more than 13 million phones in the US alone, and of course the iPhone is selling in much of Europe and Asia.

There are probably several factors contributing to robust sales. Extremely high customer satisfaction makes current owners evangelists for Apple products. The iPhone 4S with Siri created a lot of positive buzz, and there were very low prices on the older iPhone 3Gs.

All these projections are higher than those of the previous quarter and the numbers from 2010. Of course they are only projections, and we'll know for sure when Apple lifts the curtain on the real numbers later this month.

[via All Things Digital]

Reports suggest 4th quarter iPhone sales very good originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 06 Jan 2012 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

There are plenty of weather apps, and lots of navigation apps, but there are few apps that allow you to plan a road trip taking current conditions or forecasts into consideration.

Road Trip Weather does that. The US $0.99 app allows you to input your current location or starting point, a mid-point on your trip, and your destination. After some quick calculations, a map will show your route and some color codes will show good weather, bad weather, and weather that is worth noting. If you click on a point on the map, you'll get some details about conditions.

This app is not a navigation app, just a quick way to get an idea what to expect. You can set it for a start time on the current day, the next day, or the following day.

I found the information accurate and a good place to turn if you are planning a road trip. The app points out some issues I'd love to see others tackle. Most navigation apps have no built in weather. Both Garmin and Navigon, for example, do have some bare bones weather data, but I think there is a need for more information in navigation apps. Why can't a severe thunderstorm that crosses an interstate I'm on get noted? How about tornado warnings along my route? Many nav apps include traffic warnings, but in-depth weather warnings don't seem to be widely available.

Road Trip Weather is a nice little app, that serves a good purpose. The app is universal, and works fine on any iOS device and requires iOS 5.0 or later. Some screen shots are below.

Gallery: Road Trip Weather

Daily iPhone App: Road Trip Weather originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 05 Jan 2012 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

iRelay! (US$0.99) is an interesting photo sharing app that provides some features that aren't native to the iPhone.

Using the app, pictures on your phone can be grouped by collection, activity or person. A link can be posted to the galleries, and that link can be shared over email, text messages, Facebook, Tumblr or Twitter.

Photos are sent at full resolution, and you can see the galleries of friends who are also using iRelay. You can send multiple photos at a time, but only via email.

iRelay! solves these issues neatly. Storage uses your iCloud allotment, and links expire in 14 days.

One thing I've noticed, and I think it is an issue. When I email a link to a gallery it can't be opened on a Mac using Safari or Chrome directly. Instead, the browsers download the link, which can then be double clicked on. That seems a bit of a nuisance. Even right-clicking on the link doesn't do the trick. On an iOS device the link works perfectly, and the gallery appears with an expiration date.

iRelay! is a pretty nice solution to getting your pictures out to friends and family in a straightforward way. Not everything is intuitive about using the app, but comprehensive help is built-in and easy to understand. The app is iPhone only and requires iOS5 or greater.

Check the gallery for some screen shots.

Gallery: iRelay! Screenshots

Daily iPhone app: iRelay! originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 02 Jan 2012 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Snapseed is one of my very favorite photo editors for the iPhone and iPad. It's normally US$4.99, but thanks to a New Year's Eve special it's absolutely free today.

Snapseed includes the usual filters and cropping and straightening tools, but also adds frames and selective adjustments. It's just the app to bring some of your holiday pictures to life.

So run, don't walk to the app store, and pick up Snapseed. I thought it was well worth the 5 dollar toll, but at a price of "free" it is a complete no-brainer.

Snapseed photo editor for iOS free today only originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sat, 31 Dec 2011 15:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Good news for iPhone owners on the Verizon network. A day after announcing a plan to charge customers a $2.00 fee for telephone and online bill payments the plan has vanished without a trace.

Could it be the announcement today from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission today saying it was going to look into the fees on behalf of Verizon customers?

Verizon said it was dumping the fees after the company was met with a storm of criticism, including an online petition signed by 95,000 people.

Whatever the reason, the fee has evaporated as quickly as it appeared. Many outraged customers threatened to dump the company and take their business elsewhere.

There is no official announcement of the change on the Verizon website. It is being widely reported in major news outlets.

The reversal on the fees follows the widely reported Bank of America debacle in September where the company tried and failed to implement a $5 fee for customers to use their debit cards. Other companies have quickly changed policies after an online outcry, often quickly spread via Reddit, Twitter and Facebook.

[via Reuters]

Verizon announces then kills extra $2 fee to pay bill by phone or online originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 30 Dec 2011 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Getting current weather on your iPhone lock screen seems like a really good idea. That's what the US$0.99 Lock Screen Weather app does. Tap a button on your iPhone and you'll get the current weather at your location, plus an extended 5 day forecast.

There have been other attempts to do this, like the Weather Lock Screen, app but the weather is not live and has to be updated every day. By comparison, Lock Screen Weather works pretty well. Give it your location (or any city you want weather for), run the app, and you're set.

The app also gives you an option for background sounds, like the ocean or a lake. However, those sounds run all the time, and I can't think of many people who would want their iPhone constantly making noise. Thankfully, that feature can be turned off.

There are some downsides. I've seen a few crashes, which makes it so the app doesn't run and you see your normal lock screen instead. I've also seen some issues where the app seems to interfere with the iPhone's sleep function.

Other than that, Lock Screen Weather does what it advertises. The weather does update, and that's what you want out of the app. I expect the crashes that sometimes happen can be fixed in an update, and then the app would get my highest recommendation.

Note: Some of our readers have suggested that the app weather page is actually treated as an album cover, and that even in silent mode the app is playing an empty track. If that is the case, running the app would have a negative effect on battery life. I have confirmed that playing music files crashes the app, so that gives credence to the claims being made. I've asked the app author for some explanation, so at this point, having already noted the crashing issues, it is not at this time something I would recommend.

A further note from app author Michal Sedlak confirms that he treats his weather screen as an album cover: "In order to display weather on the lock screen, we need to play at least low quality 'silence sound' to make battery drain as low as possible. We are working hard to improve this app in future updates."

Clearly, the app is making an end run around Apple to stay within the rules, but to accomplish something Apple does not really allow directly. I think the author should disclose his methodology in his write-up at the app store so people can choose if they want to trade some battery life for live weather.

Check below for a couple of screen shots that show what you can expect.

Gallery: Lock Screen Weather

Daily iPhone app: Lock Screen Weather originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 29 Dec 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

It depends on how you count the numbers (doesn't it always?) but it looks like iOS won Christmas day activations by a hefty 1.6 million units.

The info comes from Flurry Analytics, who reports that iOS and Android together added 6.9 million devices on Christmas Day, a 353 percent increase from Christmas 2010. The data is also based on tweets from Google's Andy Rubin.

The increased iOS activations are probably due to the iPad and iPod touch. Of course, all these numbers are educated guesswork, and the numbers don't include Amazon's Kindle Fire.

The study also noted app downloads for both iOS and Android doubled during Christmas Day, as all those new smartphones loaded up on new software.

Expect to see some hard numbers from Apple when it reports on its first fiscal quarter next month.

[via Fortune Tech]

iOS vs. Android: comparing Christmas activation numbers originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 29 Dec 2011 06:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

If you have that new iPhone you received for the holidays, you're probably looking to load it up with some apps that will enhance your mobile experience. Let me suggest some of the best of the free apps. Of course, everyone will have their own list, but here are my 5 favorites that I think most new iPhone users will love to use and to show off their new iPhone.

If you're a news junkie, by all means get Zite, newly released for the iPhone. It sets you up with news categories of interest to you, then learns what you like by keeping track of stories you click on. Over time, it gets smarter and smarter, so in essence it creates a personalized magazine for you. Their are other news readers and aggregators, but the presentation of stories in Zite and its ability to learn make it my first choice.

Glypmse is one of my very favorite apps, the kind of app I would pay for if it wasn't free. While some of the location-tracking functionality it offers is covered by Apple's iOS 5-only Find my Friends app, Glympse is more flexible and cross-platform to boot.

With Glympse you send a message (email or SMS) to someone with information on your location; the link is set to expire when you want it to, so your friends can't track you indefinitely. Let's say you are meeting someone for lunch. When they get your message, they click on the included link, and Glympse loads a map showing a moving pin (that's you) along with your ETA. The person you are meeting doesn't need an iPhone, just any web-capable device, including laptops. It's a great service, and in practice I've found it to be super reliable.

Tango does what Apple's FaceTime won't do, which is to allow you to video conference with another cellphone using 3G (FaceTime requires WiFi). Tango has added clients for Android and Windows Phone, so it's a great way to visually keep in touch with friends. I even tried it with a friend touring China and it worked. An update last week allows you to leave video mail for your Tango buddies.

For more intellectual pursuits, try the recently released TED app. It's a collection of great talks from people in the arts, literature and the sciences. The app has been updated to work with Airplay, so you can stream the audio to another device like an Apple TV 2. I try to watch a TED talk at least once a week, and it's always a treat.

Finally, for pure fun, try Action Movie FX. From the creators of the new Mission: Impossible movie, you can add rather impressive special effects to your own movies. With the free version you can add a missile strike or a car crash to your own video. It looks great, and the price is exactly right. Reviews are glowing. There are some other modules you can buy, like a tornado or helicopter crash, but I was fine with the free effects. It's more fun than you should be allowed to have for free.

Enjoy that new iPhone. These free apps should help get you started. I'll add one bonus free app to the mix. Don't forget the free TUAW iPhone app to help you keep up with the latest and greatest Apple news. Happy Holidays!

Correction: Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this post stated that Find my Friends did not allow you to set up an expiring location tracker; it does allow this, via the 'Temporary' group sharing option. It still requires all participants to be using an iOS 5 device, while Glympse is cross-platform (as is Google Latitude, which also offers an iOS app). We apologize for the error. -Ed.

New iPhone? Try these must-have free apps originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 26 Dec 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Christmas from Quicken is coming pretty late, but it will be appreciated by many Mac users. The company has emailed users that it will finally offer a version of Quicken that runs under Lion and Snow Leopard.

Intuit Personal Finance Group GM Aaron Forth wrote users today "I understand the frustration this may have caused you and have put a team in place to address this issue. I am happy to announce that we will have a solution that makes Quicken 2007 for Mac 'Lion-compatible' by early spring."

The company has lost a lot of customers over the issue and much goodwill. The company has some more details about the update on its website, along with a link so customers can be notified when the new version ships.

It's even a bit more aggravating because Bill Campbell, the former CEO of Quicken parent company Intuit, is a member of the Apple Board of Directors. After Lion was released, Intuit said it had no plans to release a Lion-friendly version of its application. It has been 5 years since Quicken has been updated.

Intuit does offer Quicken Essentials for Mac, but it won't load Quicken 2007 files and can't do online bill paying.

Intuit to deliver Quicken update for Lion compatibility originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 22 Dec 2011 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

A leaked memo from media giant Gannett Company reveals plans to buy thousands of iPhones, iPads and other accessories to use in news gathering.

The memo, from Gannett Newspaper President Bob Dickey says that the new devices "will help our journalists meet the demands of the new news cycle, one that requires agility in real-time reporting, social media and greater emphasis on video storytelling, further increasing our competitive advantage." Does that mean there's an app for all of that?

The equipment, in part, will add to 'digital workstations' at company locations around the country. The equipment is due to arrive next month, and will be followed by extensive training.

Throughout journalism, print and broadcast reporters are increasingly using consumer cameras and phones to gather and create content. Gannett has been very aggressive in digital media. Its iOS versions of USA Today have been very popular, and it's interesting to see that the company is turning to Apple not only for distribution, but also for the hardware and technology to collect stories and media as well.

Gannett Co. reportedly buying iPhones, iPads for journalists originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 22 Dec 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Are you the kind of person who is constantly asking for advice? Do you need a little reinforcement before that big decision? The wonderful satirists at The Onion have just the app for you. It's called the Magic Answer Ball. I'd call it a parody of the old round balls you'd find at the gag store that you shake and an answer to your question pops up floating in the liquid goo that is inside.

This US$0.99 app dispenses with the gooey liquid and uses your iPhone instead. Ask your question (no voice recognition here), shake your iPhone and a highly irrelevant answer will come up.

Just like Siri. Sometimes.

You can share it all on Facebook. If you're so indecisive that you can't think of a question, the app generates some new ones every day, like "Should I buy a riverboat?" and "Do my victims ever think about me?"

The app is fun, and might be good to break out at a company holiday party when things are going slow, as is often the case at those things.

I did ask the app if I should spend money on it. The answer: "Not if we have anything to say about it." So there you are.

Gallery: The Onion Magic Answer Ball

Got a question? Try the Onion Magic Answer Ball originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 21 Dec 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

If you're tired of looking at that stale Mac OS desktop, think about adding Magic Window to your visual bag of tricks.

Magic Window, available through the Mac App Store for US$2.99 (on sale) comes with 14 striking landscapes that change over time, so you see the skies change and the sun might rise or set. You get to control the speed, and you also can make the images black and white or sepia. Each loop contains about a thousand images.

The high-resolution scenes support my 30-inch monitor without looking blocky. Once you have the app, you have an option to download more scenes at no additional cost. There are a total of 40 scenes you can choose from. They are grouped by themes such as mountains, beaches, sunsets and so on.

This app is reminiscent of Sundial from Aladdin Systems, which was a pre-OS X Mac application. It's long gone, but the novelty of Sundial was that it tied the scene to your system clock so as the sun was rising locally, your screen was displaying the same thing. Magic Window doesn't do that, darn it, and most of the loops don't run 24 hours. Josh Michaels, one of the creators of the app, tells me that the app will eventually have that feature, which is most welcome. I'd love to see that.

I like Magic Window. It gives my desktop some much-needed variety. It supports multiple monitors and you can have different scenes on each one. You also get the option to use Magic Window as a screen-saver, and you can randomly shuffle the scenes.

Magic Window is also available for iOS devices, and we reviewed the iPad version last year.

The sale runs until Dec. 29 when the price returns to $9.99. I'm hoping Magic Window will be updated with new scenes and features over time, but it's very nice as it is.

Check out the gallery for some samples from the image collection.

Gallery: Magic Window desktop images

Daily Mac App: Magic Window originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 19 Dec 2011 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Ever seen a photo and wondered if it is real or 'photoshopped'? Been to a dating site and wonder if the photo truly represents the person shown?

Photo Police, a US$1.99 Mac app can often determine if a photo is real or fake. The app works by looking at low-bit pixel data, which can reveal if an image editor has made corrections or changes to software.

Program author Nikolay Kropachev told me that low bit data is usually white noise, and invisible just by looking at an image. The program applies some math and reveals the low bit data; changes can show up very clearly. It can detect blurring that might be used in wrinkle removal, or show where objects were deleted from images.

I tried it on some known fake photos and the changes were quite obvious to Photo Police. I also tried some photos that were purported to be iPhone prototypes, and they also showed some obvious meddling. I also tried it on some images where I used Photoshop content aware fill and it detected some of the changes even though the photo itself looked fine. In other areas of the image Photoshop was able to fool Photo Police. On a photo montage where I did sky replacement Photo Police detected the changes.

The app can't guarantee it will find fakery, because some cameras may generate artifacts, and some image processing operations will make Photo Police think there has been an alteration rather than processing.

In my tests, Photo Police worked quite well, and certainly would give you additional reasons to be suspicious about an image. You can't load raw images into Photo Police, it requires jpeg files.

If you're interested in doing some detective work on images people send you, or things you find on the web, it's a very inexpensive and useful utility. Now I think I'll go chase some Bigfoot and UFO photos.

Check the gallery for some examples of what Photo Police can detect.

Gallery: Photo Police for Mac

Daily Mac App: Photo Police originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 16 Dec 2011 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The San Diego Zoo is arguably among the very best zoos in the world. With more than 4,000 animals and 800-plus species, it's a national treasure. My visits are fondly remembered, and starting today you can visit some of the best of the zoo from the comfort of your iPhone.

The free SanDiegoZoo app is chock full of pictures, maps, visitor info and live cams showing pandas and polar bears, among other features.

There are hundreds of still images of zoo residents, and all are sharable and can be saved locally. There are also guides to the many restaurants at the zoo, but no menus. There is also a detailed zoom-able map, but I'd prefer GPS integration so that people who are actually at the zoo could see where they are and easily find their way around the huge facility.

This official, zoo-sponsored app has a lot to offer for animal lovers and fans of the San Diego Zoo. The app could use a bit more detailed information in certain areas.

The app is an 18 MB download and is for iPhone and iPod touch only, although armchair travelers would probably appreciate an iPad version of the app. SanDiegoZoo is a good app, and with a few changes could be great. Even if you never get to visit the zoo, this app is a great introduction and offers some good information and striking images.

Check the gallery for some sample screens.

Gallery: San Diego Zoo

Visit the famed San Diego Zoo with your iPhone originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 15 Dec 2011 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.