What do you do after spending a billion dollars buying a popular photography app? If you're Facebook, you then release your own branded app that does the exact same thing. Yes, Facebook has just launched the Facebook Camera app. The app allows you to take photos or select current photos from your iPhone's camera roll and upload them directly to your Facebook Timeline. Like Instagram, Facebook camera allows you to apply filters (though there are only 16 for now) before uploading your pics.

Besides filter support, the app also allows you to crop and rotate your photos, batch upload them (something the current Facebook app can't do), and follow your friends' photo feeds. All in all, if you're an Instagram fan, you won't be too impressed with Facebook Camera because Instagram can do much more (such as hash tag, tilt-shift, etc). And fans of Instagram, worry not. The Instagram app is still alive and kicking on the App Store and shows no signs of going anywhere.

Facebook Camera is a free download.

Facebook launches Instagram-like "Camera" app originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 24 May 2012 14:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Popular personal finance site Mint.com is launching an update to its iOS app today that adds the ability to split transactions and adjust budgets on the fly. Those two new features were the most requested from users and make an already excellent app even better. Intuit gave me a sneak peek of the updated app last week, and it's clear that the progression of their app demonstrates the company is keenly aware of how important mobile is becoming to the Mint platform. The company told me that Mint users are remarkably mobile-oriented. In fact, some 40% of the service's subscribers access their accounts only through their mobile devices - skipping the desktop browser entirely. And that number is rising thanks to the popularity of its iPad app. Intuit expects over half of Mint's users will only access the service via mobile very soon.

The new split transaction and budget features apply to both the iPhone and iPad app. To adjust a budget, tap the budget category to reveal a 6-month spending bar chart for that category. The bar chart is helpful for you to see how much your actual spending for that budget changes month-to-month. Your current budget is displayed in a slider to the right of the bar chart. If you want to change your budget, simply drag the slider up or down. A nice feature of the budget slider is a variable speed scrubbing that readers will be familiar with from iOS's video apps. While adjusting the budget, users can slide their finger to the left or right to decrease or increase the budget in smaller or larger increments (say, $1, $10, or $25 at a time). Users can also select additional budget categories to display in addition to the currently shown ones.

The other major new feature is the ability to split transactions. While viewing your transactions you'll now see a "split" button. Tap it to bring up the split transaction window. You can then divide a transaction into as many categories as you want. For example, a $2,500 transaction from Walmart, which by default would normally be labeled "Shopping," can now be split into multiple transaction categories -- i.e. $1,200 for "Electronics," $85 for "Food," $234 for "Clothing," etc. Best of all there's no arithmetic required. When you split a transaction, each category's sum is automatically deducted from the original category's total.

You can check out the new features in the gallery below. Mint version 2.4 is a universal app and a free download.

Gallery: Mint adds budget and split-transactions to iOS app

Mint adds split-transactions and budget adjustments to iOS app, 40% of users now mobile-only originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 23 May 2012 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Facebook has just released their Facebook Pages Manager app for iOS. The app allows Pages admins to administer their Facebook Page account from the comfort of their iPhone. According to the app store listing, the 1.0 release allows the admin to:

• Post new updates and photos as your Page
• Get notified about new activity on your Page when it happens, no matter where you are
• Respond, post and comment as your Page while you're on-the-go
• Manage all your Facebook Pages from one app
• View your latest Page Insights

Facebook Pages Manager available originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 22 May 2012 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Apple has released Digital Camera RAW Compatibility Update 3.13, which adds RAW image compatibility support for six new cameras to iPhoto '11 and Aperture 3. The newly supported cameras are:

• Canon EOS-1D X
• Nikon D800E
• Nikon D3200
• Olympus OM-D E-M5
• Panasonic LUMIX DMC-GF5
• Sony Alpha SLT-A57

The update is available via Software Update in OS X 10.7 Lion and weighs in at 8.2 MB. Interested users can also read Apple's knowledge base article here.

Apple releases Digital Camera RAW Compatibility Update 3.13 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 22 May 2012 17:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Yesterday a host of political leaders, artists, scientists, and tech visionaries paid tribute to Steve Jobs at the annual Webby Awards in New York. The tribute started with an opening from Justin Long and John Hodgman, who played Mac and PC in Apple's long-running "I'm a Mac" ads. Richard Dreyfuss, who voiced the original Think Different "Crazy Ones" commercial, then came out and said in five words (a kind of tradition at the Webbys) what he thought of Steve Jobs: "Exception that proves the rule."

In the tribute video that played, people as diverse as President Obama, Buzz Aldrin, Vint Cerf, Adriana Huffington, President Clinton, George Lucas, U2's Bono, Jon Stewart, and more all said five words each about Steve Jobs. The video ends with President Obama saying, "The truth is when we are talking about Steve Jobs, we only need one word: amazing."

You can view the whole tribute in the video below.

Presidents Obama, Clinton pay tribute to Steve Jobs at Webbys originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 22 May 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Apple will open its eleventh Apple retail store in France this Friday. The store will be located in the Centre commercial Les Quatre Temps at 15 Parvis de la Défense in Paris. The Les Quatre Temps store will be the third Apple Store in the country's capital. While Apple usually chooses historic buildings for its European capital stores, the Les Quatre Temps store is this time inside an upscale shopping center.

According to ifoAppleStore the shopping center has five floors, with the Apple Store being located on the first floor. Judging from the size of the Apple Store on this store directory, Apple plans to have one of the largest retail spaces in the shopping center. The Les Quatre Temps store opens at 9AM this Friday. Normal store hours will be from 9AM-8PM Monday through Saturday and 11AM-7PM on Sundays.

New Paris Apple Store to open on Friday originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 22 May 2012 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Apple is set to bring automatic app downloads to OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion when it debuts later this summer. As noted by 9to5Mac, the latest build of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion only has a partially working Automatic Downloads feature, but users can expect to see a finalized working version when OS X 10.8 ships.

Automatic Downloads is currently a feature of iOS which allows the same app to be downloaded instantly on all a user's devices (iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad) no matter what device the user chooses to download the app on. The feature is an easy way to keep all your devices in sync with any new apps you may have purchased.

Automatic Downloads in OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion could work in a similar manner. When you first download an app from the Mac App Store a notification will appear asking if you want to enable Automatic Downloads. Doing so will install any app purchased on the Mac App Store to any Mac that is logged in with the same Mac App Store account (provided those Macs are also running OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion).

Automatic Downloads in Mountain Lion is just another way Apple is bringing the user experience of OS X and iOS closer to parity.

Mountain Lion update includes automatic Mac app downloads originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 21 May 2012 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

It was perhaps one of the most baffling and frustrating design choices Apple ever made: the upside down Apple logo. For those of you who haven't been using Macs long enough to remember this, the "upside down Apple logo" refers to how PowerBooks and iBooks used to display the Apple logo "pointing" at the floor when the laptop was opened.

Former Apple employee Joe Moreno reveals the story behind the upside down logo. Apparently when Apple designed the PowerBook and (later with Steve Jobs) the iBook they discovered that if they placed the Apple logo upside down from the user's prospective when the lid was closed, the user would constantly try to open the laptop from the wrong side -- by the hinges, because from that angle the Apple logo was right-side-up.

Now, you would think that a company that prides itself on its branding would want their logo right side up so all the passersby would see it in the correct orientation, but Steve Jobs thought the upside down Apple logo was the right way to go. As Moreno writes:

Steve Jobs always focuses on providing the best possible user experience and believed that it was more important to satisfy the user than the onlooker.

Thankfully, Jobs eventually reversed his decision. But this story does raise the question: were that many people really trying to open their laptops from the wrong side time after time again? If so, the upside down Apple logo is probably the least of their worries. It also goes to show that Steve Jobs, as great of a design genius as he was, didn't always make the right design choices the first time around.

The story of Apple's upside down logo originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 21 May 2012 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

I've been writing these posts for the last couple of years, usually always before WWDC, as mini roundups of what I, my colleagues, and readers want to see in the next iOS release. However, as releases go on it gets harder and harder to put together lists of major features I'd like to see in the next iOS.

That's because iOS has now become a fairly developed OS capable of doing most of what you'd ever need it to do. I mean, remember when multitasking or copy and paste were the big feature requests? What about improved notifications? Wireless sync? Folders?

All that's been done.

The list I present now features a few big items, but many of the suggestions are small features that would really "tidy up" the OS and make it more usable. That's not to say I don't think iOS won't continue to innovate, but those major innovations and brand new features will most likely be something Apple will surprise us with and not something that many people could have guessed beforehand. This list also doesn't take software features that would require hardware upgrades into account, like a mobile payment system.

So here's the list of what I hope to see in iOS 6. And when you're done reading it, I'd love for you to add your own feature requests to the list in the comments below.

1. Expand Siri's capabilities and open up the Siri API.

This is probably the biggest request on anyone's wish list. When Siri debuted in iOS 5 on the iPhone 4S, it was easily the most touted new feature. However, after the novelty wore off iPhone 4S users quickly divided into two camps: those that do use it and those that don't. I'm one of the guys that do. However, that's not to say there isn't room for major improvements to Siri, or as I call it: the most underdeveloped feature on the iPhone.

Now to be fair to Apple, Siri is still a beta feature, so it's unfair to really judge it as if it has been completed in Apple's final vision. It will continue to evolve over time, and here's what I hope it can do in iOS 6:

Apple needs to expand Siri's capabilities. The easiest way to do this would be to open up Siri's API to third-party developers. Once Apple does this, that's when the power of Siri will really shine. Imagine being able to say "Skype my brother," "Tweet '@TUAW' rocks," "Shazam this song," or "Record my weight in LoseIt."

Those are just some simple examples, of course. If Apple were to open up Siri's API it would be the developers who could really make Siri the killer feature. However, given the server requirements it takes to run Siri queries and the fact that it's still in beta, it's unlikely Apple is going to open Siri to third-parties any time soon. If they don't, I at least hope they'll add more features in-house, including things like asking for local movie times, telling the camera to take a picture "in 10 seconds," and turn by turn directions.

Another thing Apple could do to improve Siri without opening it up to devs is adding the ability to toggle system services, including turning Bluetooth, Wifi, Personal Hotspot, and Airplane mode on or off. Also commands like "Go to TUAW.com" would be nice instead of the current way of navigating to a website via Siri by having to say "search for TUAW" and then clicking on the website in the search results list in Safari.

2. Multiple users (on iPad).

Let me state that multiple users on an iPhone would be ridiculous, but on an iPad I think it makes a lot of sense. Phones are personal, but iPads are shared a lot in homes. It would be great if iOS 6 adds user support to the iPad. After all, it'd be nice to let my niece use my iPad without worrying she'll accidentally delete an important email.

There was a time when multiple users on an iPad wouldn't have made sense from a practical point of view. After all, if each user stored all their photos and videos on the iPad, it could quickly fill up the hard drive. But with iCloud and iTunes Match -- and their no doubt continued expansion -- multiple users are much more feasible as each user could access all of his or her documents and media right from the cloud.

3. Facebook integration.

I use Twitter 10x more than I used to because of its integration with iOS 5. It's so nice to be able to tweet a photo or a web link right from Photos or Safari without having to switch to the Twitter app.

Given that I'm a bigger Facebook user than Twitter user, I hope Apple adds system-wide Facebook sharing to iOS 6. This isn't an original feature request, and it's actually appeared in in-house beta's of iOS before, but never actually included in public releases. The fault here, of course, probably lies with Facebook more than Apple. Apple generally likes to protect their user's information as much as possible while Facebook, well...they want as much as that information as they can get. Until Apple and Facebook can work something out, I'm afraid we won't see system-wide Facebook integration. That's really a shame, more so for Facebook than Apple because, as I've said, iOS 5's Twitter integration has got me using that service a lot more than I ever would have.

4. Auto-hide an empty Newsstand.

I first suggested the idea of a Newsstand-type app years ago before Apple finally introduced it in iOS 5. Magazines are a natural fit for the iPad, after all. However, while Newsstand is welcome by some, for others it's like the houseguest that just won't leave.

The problem with Newsstand is that it takes up a space on your screen even if you don't have a subscription to a periodical. Now I realize why Apple did this: they wanted to encourage people to check out subscriptions. But unlike the iBooks, iTunes, or App Store apps, you don't need the actual Newsstand "app" to search for or buy magazines and newspapers. That's because Newsstand isn't actually an app, much less a store, at all. It's just a glorified folder that holds specific types of apps -- newspapers and magazines. Magazine and newspaper apps can all be found in the Newsstand section of the App Store and could still be found there even without the Newsstand folder (remove iBooks, on the other hand, and you'll have no access to the iBookstore on your iOS device).

What I'm proposing is that the Newsstand folder remains hidden until you download a subscription. As soon as you download even one, its app appears in the Newsstand folder on your homescreen. But when you delete all the subscriptions inside your Newsstand folder, the folder disappears as well.

5. Multitasking gestures for iPhone.

With iOS 5 Apple introduced four- and five-finger gestures on the iPad. Using four or five fingers you can pinch to reveal the homescreen, swipe up to reveal the multitasking bar, or swipe left or right to move between apps. Those gestures made the iPad infinitely more pleasurable and organic to use.

I suggest Apple bring multitasking gestures to the iPhone. Three finger pinch to homescreen; three finger swipe up to reveal multitasking bar; and three finger swipe left or right to switch between apps.

6. Improved Notification Center.

Improved notifications were a big request before iOS 5, and Apple hit it out of the park when they completely revamped notifications with the introduction of Notification Center.

However, as good as Notification Center is, it could still use some improvements. First, it could use more widgets, specifically on the iPad. There's no built-in Weather or Stocks app on the iPad, but it would be nice if Apple would at least give you the option of showing the weather forecast and stock quotes in Notification Center on iPad for unity's sake (see #7). Another nice feature would be a timer widget that shows up in Notification Center so you don't have to tap through to your Clock app to see how much time you have left for that cake to get done cooking in the oven.

A final improvement to Notification Center: clearing notifications takes a couple of awkward taps in a narrow corner of the notification's header. Instead it would be much more intuitive if you could swipe right, then tap a standard big red delete button to remove a notification.

7. Weather, Stocks, and Clock for iPad.

Unity is nice. And iCloud could keep stock quotes, weather locations, and alarms in sync across devices. 'Nuff said.

8. AirDrop for iOS

Pre-iOS 5, many people clamored for a Finder app to store files on the iPhone. Apple's answer was simpler: iCloud. However, while iCloud is a great way to keep your documents in sync across your devices, it doesn't really help when you want to easily share a file with someone else.

Enter AirDrop for iOS. Select a file, select the Share button, tap "AirDrop" to see a list of AirDrop-enabled iPhones, iPads, and Macs in your area, then select the device you want to share with. This would work great for sharing something as simple as a virtual business card or as large as a video or Keynote presentation with other people. Extra points if the AirDrop interface had cool GUI animations where you could just slide a file from one iOS device to the next.

9. Quick access to toggle Bluetooth, WiFi, and 3G on and off.

Yeah, some people toggle their Bluetooth a lot. Right now it takes five steps. Apple could always move the Bluetooth setting to a first-level heading in the Settings app, but if you're a "power toggler" and are constantly turning Bluetooth on and off (or 3G or Wifi) it might be nice to have quick access to these settings in another way. Here are a few ideas how Apple could do it:

• Siri -- (as mentioned earlier) "Turn Bluetooth Off." Done.
• Swipe the dock to the right -- The dock in iOS doesn't do anything when you swipe over it. Apple could easily enable left or right swiping of the dock to reveal quick-access toggle buttons for wireless services behind in.
• Swipe up at the bottom of any screen -- Just like you can swipe down from the top of any screen to reveal Notification Center, Apple could enable up-swiping from the bottom of any screen to quickly reveal wireless service toggle buttons.
• Add Bluetooth to the multitasking bar -- This of course is the most obvious answer. Just like you can adjust the volume or screen rotation lock from the multitasking bar, Apple could easily add a Bluetooth toggle button there too.

10. Universal passcode locks for apps.

Right now it's up to the developer to include a passcode lock option for an app. It would be nice if Apple could add a Passcode Lock Center in Settings where you could choose to set not only a passcode for your iPhone or iPad, but also apply the same or different passcode to any app of your choice on your device. More security is always nice.

11. Multiple signatures in Mail.

Sometimes you want to send emails with different signatures. Right now iOS only lets you have one signature -- and it's either attached to every email or it's not. Give us multiple signature options, including the ability to include or exclude signatures right within each email composition window.

12. Safari Top Sites.

This isn't so much a feature I'd like to see on the iPhone, but I think it would rock on the iPad. This is also a holdover from my last iOS wishlist. Ever since Apple introduced Top Sites for desktop Safari, I've used them as my primary way of getting to my favorite sites. I love how they give me a graphical representation of when a site has new content on it, and it's much better for the layperson than updates through RSS feeds. Enabling Top Sites in mobile Safari would make it much easier for users to navigate to their favorite sites and know when those sites have new content (something web clip icons can't do either).

13. Ability to select default mail, calendar, and Twitter clents.

Yeah, this is a long shot, but I'm adding it to the list because so many people have requested it. Do I see this ever happening? Nope.

14. Styled Text APIs.

This is also another holdout from a previous wishlist and it's something I hope Apple implements this time around, again, for developers' sakes. While there are many great word processors available for iOS, Pages on the iPad is still the best. Why? Because it's got an incredibly rich set of styled text features. Apple hasn't made the styled text APIs used in Pages available to developers, so if developers do want to use styled text in their apps, they basically need to write all that code from scratch. If Apple decides to open up the styled text APIs used in Pages to other developers, we'll see some great productivity apps coming out later this year.

15. Improved cursor navigation.

I originally didn't have any suggestions for improving iOS's text entry or onscreen keyboard, but then I saw this concept video by YouTube user danielchasehooper. The concept is simply brilliant and would make cursor navigation much, much easier on the iPad's large screen where text entry fields are generally further away from your fingers than on the iPhone's screen.

iOS 6 is expected to be shown off at this year's WWDC, which runs from June 11-15.

15 suggestions for iOS 6 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sat, 05 May 2012 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

National Rail has finally released an official iPhone app that allows users to access real-time information for all overground trains in England, Wales, and Scotland. National Rail Enquiries is more than just a journey scheduler, according to the company. The app allows users to track trains in real time, find out about disruptions and delays (which, as any UK traveler knows, happens frequently), and even allows you to re-plan your journey mid-trip.

In addition to push notifications, which give you up-to-the-minute details on your journey, National Rail Enquiries also offers a nice alert feature, which notifies you when you are coming up to your stop or if the train is dividing at a certain location.

National Rail Enquiries is a free download. However, they've laced the app with ads and if you want to remove them you'll have to fork over £4.99 as an in-app purchase. For a company who already charges sky-high rail prices for services that frequently run late, perhaps they should have skipped the ads altogether and offered their customers a truly good app experience.

UK National Rail app available for iPhone originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 02 May 2012 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The shipping times for the new iPad continue to drop as Apple continues to ramp up production of its newest tablet. US shipping times for all models of the new iPad -- WiFi and 4G -- are now only 3 to 5 business days on Apple's online store. That's down from 5 to 7 business days just ten days ago, and one to two weeks before that.

Apple has ramped up production on the new iPad quicker than it has on the previous two iterations of the device. Last Friday marked the new iPad's rollout into a total of 56 countries. Though Apple is making the new iPad as fast as possible, those outside of the US may have to wait a little longer to get their hands on one. As Cnet notes, Asian countries such as Japan and Korea still have 5 to 7 day wait times. Countries in Europe suffer the longest wait times, which are still one to two weeks.

New iPad shipping times drop to 3-5 business days originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 02 May 2012 09:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Music streaming service Spotify has finally released its long-awaited iPad app. The app itself is version 5.0 of the existing Spotify app -- the company has just made it universal -- but they've really taken the iPad into consideration to give Spotify users a unique experience all their own on Apple's tablet.

Spotify looks beautiful on the iPad, taking advantage of the Retina Display on the new iPad (although album art still shows some jaggies at full screen). The app is also easy to navigate and doesn't require a learning curve if you've ever used Twitter's iPad app before, as Spotify borrowed heavily from Twitter's design with navigation buttons on the left, a main window on the right, and then other windows which slide over the main window -- just like the panels in Twitter for iPad. Spotify's search functions are thorough, allowing you to search by artist, album, playlist, or track and their What's New section allows you to quickly discover trending track and playlists. They've also added crossfade and gapless playback features to the app. The app also is AirPlay-ready, a huge plus for when you're sitting on your couch discovering music as you can quickly beam it to your AirPlay-compatible home stereo system.

Perhaps one of the nicest features appears when you upsize a currently-playing song. You are then presented with the album up top, the track name and artist, with a timeline below for scrubbing through a song. Below that are the shuffle, repeat and AirPlay buttons, and under those are nice, big Back, Pause/Play, Forward buttons. Apple could learn from Spotify's design in this case.

Spotify is a free download and offers a 30-day free trial, but after that users will have to cough up US$9.99 a month for the premium service package to continue using the device.

Spotify now ready for iPad originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 02 May 2012 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Apple just pushed a series of updates for its iLife iOS apps. The iPhoto 1.0.1 update doesn't add any new features, but does offer a number of stability improvements including when publishing a journal to iCloud, the URL of the journal can now be copied using a Copy Link button. It also addresses an issue that could cause duplicate photos to appear in Photos view. iPhoto for iOS was first released at the beginning of March and in only 10 days hit one million downloads.

GarageBand 1.2.1 fixes an issue that could lead to crashing or missing songs when sharing to iCloud, resolves an error when logging into SoundCloud using a Facebook account, and addresses minor issues related to performance and stability.

iMovie 1.3.1 squashes a number of bugs, including problems accessing Help on iPad. There's also a new feature too: now you can easily send a song from GarageBand to iMovie.

Apple also pushed another update to its Cards app. The 1.1.2 update doesn't address any noted issues that weren't already listed in the previous two updates to the app in April.

iPhoto, GarageBand, and iMovie are $4.99 each and Cards is a free download.

Apple updates iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand for iOS originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 01 May 2012 16:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

RIM, maker of the BlackBerry, has claimed responsibility for the ultra lame "Wake Up" flash mob stunt that appeared outside the Sydney Apple store last week. The stunt saw flash mobs pull out black signs that read "Wake Up." When confronted with the signs, shoppers at the Apple Store seemed to have thought the same thing as everyone else, "Wake up to what?" then continued shopping and went about their day.

Until RIM owned up to the stunt, many had thought it was spearheaded by Samsung, which has performed similar stunts in the past. Tiphereth Gloria, a social media strategist at VML Australia, told The Age, "The punch line -- which is the fact that BlackBerry is behind it -- is what makes it fail because BlackBerry is not associated with any kind of success."

The past couple of years have not been kind to the BlackBerry, as both the iPhone and the Android-based smartphone offerings have chewed away market share from the one-time market juggernaut. Aside from the shifts in the competitive landscape, at times RIM itself seemed to encourage its own demise. First, the Canadian phone maker suggested that the iPhone was a physical impossibility when Apple announced it in 2007, and subsequently the continued self-denial that the iPhone wasn't a threat to RIM's business didn't help matters.

Unfortunately, RIM doesn't seem to know (or at least admit) that it's the next Palm. When your brand is weakening, you need killer products and not marketing stunts to get your game back. But hey, at least it's starting to admit "BlackBerry isn't for everyone."

RIM claims responsibility for "Wake Up" stunt at Apple Store originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 01 May 2012 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

One week after Apple announced it would create another 500 jobs at its European headquarters in Cork, Ireland, the employees there got a visit from none other than Ireland's Prime Minister Enda Kenny. The visit happened yesterday, reports MacWorld UK, and during that time Kenny was snapped chatting with Apple employees, though it's not known exactly what he talked about.

There's no doubt the news of 500 new jobs pleased the PM, as Ireland is one of the EU countries most affected by the current recession. Apple's headquarters and plant in Cork is not only the home of all of Apple's European operations, but it's also an assembly point for the MacBook Pro.

Apple's current plant in Cork was opened in 1980 and was the first non-US headquarters for the company. The location now employs 2,800 people who work in backend, supply chain and distribution operations for Europe. Apple plans to add the additional 500 jobs over the next 18 months.

Irish Prime Minister visits Apple's European headquarters originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sat, 28 Apr 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that Josh Gad is in talks to play Steve Wozniak in Jobs, the independent film staring Ashton Kutcher as Steve Jobs. Gad is best known for his starring role in the South Park creators' musical "Book of Mormon." He is also a correspondent for The Daily Show and has appeared in feature films such as Love and Other Drugs.

Jobs will be shot on a shoestring budget of around US$5 million beginning next month in Texas. The film will chart the story of Steve Jobs from his days as a teenager to when he founded Apple -- and perhaps up to his return to the company in 1997, depending which reports of the script are accurate. The Ashton Kutcher-led Jobs film is not to be confused with Sony's official adaptation of Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs biography, which is due out late this year.

Photograph credit: Dimitrio Kambouris/Getty Images.

Broadway star Josh Gad to play Woz in Jobs biopic originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sat, 28 Apr 2012 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Just over two months after Apple acquired the app discovery service Chomp, the company has removed features that allowed users to search for Android apps in addition to iOS apps. Chomp is a search tool that lets users to search for an app based on what it can do, instead of by the name alone. The service works using specific algorithms that sort through and compile what an app does based on its description, user reviews, and capabilities.

Apple bought Chomp in February for US$50 million. It is assumed that Chomp was not just a talent acquisition, but was also purchased so that Apple can use Chomp's technology in future versions of the App Store. During Apple's financial earnings call last week, the company announced the App Store now has more than 600,000 apps and the Mac App Store has over 10,000 apps. One of the biggest complaints from developers and users alike is that it's hard to discover new and interesting apps with the existing App Store search function.

Apple removes Android app searches from Chomp originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sat, 28 Apr 2012 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Have you ever been out and realized you forgot your wallet just as you were going to pay for something? Bummer, right? And it probably makes you wish that Apple would go ahead and build a mobile payment system into the iPhone -- because you never leave your house without that.

Now imagine that you're a super cool player, meet a girl, and get invited back to her place for a "nightcap." Being the stud you are, you bypass the drink and get funky the second she closes the door. That's when you reach into your pockets and find your iPhone, but realize you forgot the one accessory every player should carry. Double bummer. I mean, despite all that the iPhone can do, there's no way it can help you in this situation, right?

Wrong.

Well, wrong if you have the right iPhone case. The aptly named Playa case by Opena aims to ensure that you're never without the means to get your groove on safely. The "discreet storage slot" on the back of the case carries one condom should the need arise. Click on over to Opena's website to place your preorder, playas. And also don't forget to watch the video where an Australian kid explains where he uses the Playa, including ... when walking the dog ...

No comment.

No comment: iPhone case has a "discreet" storage compartment originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 27 Apr 2012 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Apple began selling the new iPad today in an additional nine countries, including India. The other countries include Colombia, Estonia, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, South Africa and Thailand. With today's rollout the new iPad is now available in 56 countries around the world -- the fastest iPad expansion to date.

However, as noted by CNET, the biggest country in today's launch, India, seems to have little excitement for the new tablet. Apple has no official retail presence in the country. Instead, its products are sold through third-party retailers, many of which sell cheaper tablets. That's an important factor for many Indian customers as, on average, Indian citizens have less disposable income for tech goods as their Western counterparts. In fact, at one Indian reseller the only one waiting in line for the new iPad was a bull.

Both the Wi-Fi and 4G models are now available through Apple's online store and at select Apple Authorized Resellers.

Photo credit: Ankit Tuteja/IBNLive.com

New iPad arrives in India, eight other countries today originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 27 Apr 2012 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Well, who could have seen that coming? LinkedIn has released version 5.0 of its iOS app and the big feature is that it now natively supports the iPad. LinkedIn is currently the world's third largest social media site with 150 million members in over 200 countries.

On the iPad the LinkedIn app is divided into three sections: "You," "All Updates," and "Inbox." "You" allows you to easily view your profile, post updates, see who's viewed your profile, and add contacts. "All Updates" is the real meat of the app. It's a beautifully designed interface that allows you to see all your contact's updates, see what they're sharing, and read headlines and articles from LinkedIn Today's news feed. Finally, "Inbox" is, of course, your LinkedIn mail which allows you to read your messages and accept new invites.

As I've written before, it's cumbersome to view the LinkedIn website on an iPad, so the addition of iPad support to the already beautiful iPhone app is more than welcome.

LinkedIn 5.0 is a universal app and a free download.

LinkedIn arrives on the iPad originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 26 Apr 2012 08:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Madrid Spain Apple Store set to open this weekend originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 24 Apr 2012 10:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

AT&T has just announced its 1Q12 earnings. The company reported a net income of US$3.58 billion, or 60 cents per share. That's up from $3.4 billion, or 57 cents per share in 1Q11. AT&T's gains come primarily from lower iPhone subsidies, as the iPhone 4S was no longer new and thus the company sold fewer of them -- which means it had less to pay out to Apple.

However, AT&T's numbers are a good sign for Apple, which announces its 2Q12 earning after market closes today. The company activated 4.3 million iPhones in the quarter, with 21 percent new to AT&T. As GigaOm points out, that means that the demand for iPhones is up YOY on AT&T's network. In 1Q11, AT&T activated just 3.6 million iPhones..

Earlier, Verizon announced it had sold 3.2 million iPhones this past quarter. We'll have total iPhone sales numbers for Apple's 2Q12 as soon as they are announced this afternoon.

AT&T iPhone activations still going strong, up YOY originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 24 Apr 2012 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Apple has seeded the fourth build of OS X Lion 10.7.4 to developers. Build 11E52 lists no known issues and asks developers to focus on graphics, iCal, Mail, Printing, and Time Machine. The fourth build of 10.7.4 weighs in at 1.43 GB for the combo update and 716 MB for the delta update.

OS X Lion 10.7.4 Build 11E52 comes just ten days after the previous build of 10.7.4, down one month from the previous iterations. A shortening timeframe between builds generally suggests the update is getting closer to public release.

Apple seeds OS X Lion 10.7.4 Build 11E52 to developers originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 24 Apr 2012 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

As Apple prepares to go to trial to fight the US Department of Justice's claims that the Cupertino company conspired to fix ebook prices with publishers, former publisher of the Wall Street Journal L. Gordon Crovitz has an interesting oped in today's paper which he says that Apple's 30% profit sharing "agency model" with ebook publishers does not amount to the price fixing conspiracy that the DOJ accuses the company of. It is Crovitz's contention (as I assume Apple will also argue the same in court) that the government's assertion that the agency model is "inherently wrong" is false. The agency model means publishers, rather than resellers, set the prices of ebooks.

Matter of fact, Crovitz says that Apple's agency model is not only good for Apple, but good for consumers and publishers as well, insisting that instead of conspiring to fix prices, they conspired to fix a broken ebook system in which Amazon controlled almost everything:

Publishers conspired to repair an anticompetitive business model. They thought it made no sense for Amazon's Kindle to have a 90% market share and a single loss-leader price of $9.95 for consumers. They were right. Over the past couple of years, thanks to the agency model, the Kindle's market share has fallen to 60% thanks to competition from iPads and Barnes & Noble Nooks, and there is more variation in consumer prices, typically ranging from $5.95 to $14.95.

Of noted interested is when Crovitz relates how he met with Apple's Eddy Cue to discuss the terms of revenue sharing for published works. Expecting a better deal than the 30% take Apple generates from apps Crovitz was a bit surprised when Cue told him, "'I don't think you understand. We can't treat newspapers or magazines any differently than we treat FarmVille." As Crovitz states: "It was a sobering reminder that traditional media brands have no preferred place in the new digital world."

Ex-WSJ publisher: Apple's 30% profit sharing ebook agency model is not a conspiracy originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 23 Apr 2012 13:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Today Apple launched the new iPad in an additional 12 countries around the world. While eleven of the countries -- Brunei, Croatia, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Malaysia, Panama, St Maarten, Uruguay and Venezuela -- are relatively small markets, the new iPad also went on sale in South Korea, one of the most technologically advanced countries on the planet and one of the major tech markets in Asia. Check out the video below, first posted by Apple 2.0, to see South Korean Apple fans lining up for the new tablet at a local Apple reseller.

Apple's new iPad international rollout isn't done for the month either. One week from today on Friday, April 27, Apple will begin selling the new iPad in an additional nine countries: Colombia, Estonia, India, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, South Africa and Thailand. The new iPad will then be available in 56 countries around the world.

Video from South Korean launch of new iPad originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 20 Apr 2012 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

As noted by Cnet, the iPhone is launching on an additional five US regional carriers today. The carriers include Alaska Communications, Appalachian Wireless (Kentucky and Virgina), Cellcom (Wisconsin and Michigan), nTelos (Virginia), and GCI (Alaska).

The regional carriers apparently know they'll have an uphill battle against the national carriers like AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon, so they're offering the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S at $50 discounts over the nationals. With a two year contract, the 8GB iPhone 4 costs $49 and the 16, 32, and 64 GB iPhone 4S costs $149, $249, and $349 respectively.

iPhone will launch for five US regional carriers today originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 20 Apr 2012 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

What is arguably the most anticipated earnings call on Wall Street every quarter will take place next Tuesday, April 24th at 2pm PT/5pm ET. That's when Apple will release its earnings report for the second quarter, which ended March 31st.

There's lots of speculation about whether Apple will hit consensus estimates for their Mac products -- notably iMacs and MacBook Pros, which have not seen major updates in almost a year. However it's generally assumed that the launch of the new iPad in this quarter will help Apple offset any missed Mac numbers.

In the run up to the earnings call this week, Apple's stock has swung wildly, having its largest ever point drop on Monday, followed by its largest ever point gain on Tuesday, before falling over 3% again on Wednesday. AAPL shares are up 45% YTD.

TUAW will have complete coverage of next Tuesday's financial results.

Apple will webcast Q212 earnings release conference call on April 24 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 20 Apr 2012 10:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Filmmakers in New York will want to be sure to stop by the West 14th Street and Soho Apple stores beginning April 20th through April 28th. The company is offering a series of filmmaking talks and workshops at the two locations in honor of the Tribeca Film Festival.

The Apple Store, West 14th Street, and the Apple Store, SoHo, are proud to take part in the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival. To celebrate the spirit of independent film making, we're hosting free events and workshops from April 20 through April 28. And everyone's invited to attend.

Grab a seat for an exclusive Meet the Filmmakers session - presented by Apple and Indiewire - and hear the film industry's leading actors, writers, directors, and producers discuss their latest projects.

The "Meet the Filmmakers" events will feature Q&A's with writers, directors, producers, and actors including Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Brad Hall, Emily Blunt, Morgan Spurlock, Chris Colfer, Jenna Fischer, Julie Delpy, Freida Pinto, and more.

There will also be several "What's New in Filmmaking" workshops that delve into Final Cut Pro X, iLife and iWork for filmmakers, social media in film making, location scouting, lighting, effective story telling, and more.

A full list of workshop schedules can be found here. Interested readers can also download the free Tribeca Film Festival app.

Apple to offer filmmaker workshops for Tribeca Film Festival originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 17 Apr 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

A few days ago famed French designer Philippe Starck told French radio station that he was working on a "quite revolutionary" product with Apple that will be unveiled in 8 months. For a few hours the Internet went crazy with speculation that Starck was referring to the rumored Apple television set or the next iPhone. However, in a rather uncustomary move, Apple quickly issued a statement denying that the company was working with Starck in any way.

Now a spokesperson for Starck clarified the situation to The Wall Street Journal. The spokesperson confirmed what many had guessed after Apple's refutation of Starck's claims: that Starck was referring to a yacht he was designing for Steve Jobs. According to the spokesperson, "It's not a project with Apple. It's a private project that began with Steve Jobs and that has been taken over by his wife."

Steve Jobs mentioned the importance of the yacht to him and his family quite a few times in his biography. Jobs told biographer Walter Issacson, ""I didn't think I would be alive when it got done. But that made me so sad, and I decided that working on the design was fun to do, and maybe I have a shot at being alive when it's done. I know that it's possible I will die and leave Laurene with a half-built boat. But I have to keep going on it. If I don't, it's an admission that I'm about to die."

Philippe Starck reportedly working on Jobs family yacht originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 17 Apr 2012 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

AllThingsD notes that Apple has hired away Zane Rowe, United Continental's executive VP and Chief Financial Officer, to work as a new Vice President of Sales for the company. Rowe, 40, had been with Continental since 1993. In 2003, he was appointed as a Vice President of Financial Planning and Analysis at the airline and in 2008 became Continental's CFO. With the merger of UAL and Continental in 2010 United Continental, the worlds largest airline, was formed with Rowe becoming the new company's CFO.

There's no word yet on exactly which sales division Rowe will be in charge of at Apple, but the Cupertino company did release a short statement to AllThingsD about Rowe's hiring:

"We are thrilled that Zane Rowe will be joining us as one of our vice presidents of sales. He built a great team at United and we think he is going to do a fantastic job at Apple."

Interestingly in August 2011 United Continental decided to start giving all their 11,000 pilots iPads loaded with electronic documentation. Each iPad saved the airline 38 pounds of documentation per flight, which over the long run will help reduce fuel costs. There's no word if Rowe was specifically involved in this decision, but its possible this is how he came to the attention of Apple.

Apple hires United Continental CFO as VP of Sales (after airline replaces paper manuals with iPads) originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 17 Apr 2012 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Last night saw the airing of two new ads for the iPhone 4S that featured celebrities Samuel L. Jackson and Zooey Deschanel. Both thirty-second spots showed the celebs using Siri in their home environment. Jackson used Apple's personal assistant software to help him plan a "date night" and cook a meal, while the ad with Deschanel saw her using Siri on a rainy day.

The ads are significant as they mark a deviation from Apple's recent television advertising: they feature celebrities playing themselves and are as much a focus of the ad as the iPhone itself.

As of the time of this writing Apple has yet to post the ads to its iPhone ad gallery or its official YouTube channel. However, you can check out both ad below thanks to a couple sharp-eyed viewers who had their cameras ready when the ads appeared.

New iPhone ads air featuring Zooey Deschanel and Samuel L. Jackson originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 17 Apr 2012 08:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Apple has released updates for its Cards and iBooks apps. The iBooks 2.1.1 update is relatively minor, only addressing some stability and performance improvements and fixing an issue which prompted users to sign-in with their Apple ID at unexpected times.

In addition to stability and performance improvements the Cards 1.1 update also adds some new card styles, including cards for Mother's Day, new Get Well card designs, and additional cards for birthdays, thank you and more.

Both apps are free downloads.

Apple updates Cards and iBooks apps originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 16 Apr 2012 14:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Just days after Apple released its official Flashback trojan patch, another Java trojan has been discovered that could possibly infect Macs. The trojan is known as "LuckyCat." As Kaspersky Lab Expert Costin Raiu explains in a blog post, LuckyCat takes advantage of an exploit in Microsoft Word that allows malware to be spread via documents that take advantage of the CVE-2009-0563 vulnerability:

One of the biggest mysteries is the infection vector of these attacks. Given the highly targeted nature of the attack, there are very few traces. Nevertheless, we found an important detail which is the missing link: Six Microsoft Word documents, which we detect as Exploit.MSWord.CVE-2009-0563.a. In total we have six relevant Word .docs with this verdict -- with four dropping the MaControl bot. The remaining two drop SabPub.

The most interesting thing here is the history of the second SabPub variant. In our virus collection, it is named "8958.doc". This suggests it was extracted from a Word document or was distributed as a Doc-file.

Currently there are no details on how the average user can detect if they are infected with the LuckyCat trojan, nor how to remove it. One can expect that the Microsoft Word vulnerability will be patched in an Office for Mac update.

Another Java trojan for Mac discovered, this time through Microsoft Word originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 16 Apr 2012 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

ComputerWorld notes that Apple and a Chinese environmental group plan to jointly audit one of its factories in China. The audit, which is just a pilot project for the time being, will be completed by the end of April. It will be done at one of the factories that manufacture printed circuit boards for the company. The goal of the audit is to identify and pollution concerns.

The joint audit will be done by Apple and The Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE), a Beijing environmental group. The IPE told ComputerWorld that Apple held talks with the organization last year after it criticized the company's suppliers and their effects on the environment.

Apple has come under pressure in recent years to help make its suppliers' factories as environmentally friendly as possible. The company recently overhauled the Environmental section of its website and began publishing environment reports for the sake of transparency.

Apple, Chinese environmental group will audit factory for pollution concerns originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 16 Apr 2012 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Apple today issued a press release announcing the new third-generation iPad will go on sale in another twleve countries starting on Friday, April 20. Notably, one of the twelve is the important South Korean market. The other eleven countries include Brunei, Croatia, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Malaysia, Panama, St Maarten, Uruguay and Venezuela.

Then one week later on Friday, April 27, Apple will begin selling the new iPad in an additional nine countries: Colombia, Estonia, India, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, South Africa and Thailand. Both the Wi-Fi and 4G models will be on sale and available through Apple's online store and at select Apple Authorized Resellers.

The new iPad will be available in 56 countries around the world as of April 27th.

New iPad launching in 21 additional countries this month originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 16 Apr 2012 09:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Apple has officially responded to the antitrust claim brought against the company by the US Department of Justice. In the claim the DOJ says that Apple worked with five major publishers to illegally fix eBook pricing. In response to the lawsuit Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr told AllThingsD:

The DOJ's accusation of collusion against Apple is simply not true. The launch of the iBookstore in 2010 fostered innovation and competition, breaking Amazon's monopolistic grip on the publishing industry. Since then customers have benefited from eBooks that are more interactive and engaging. Just as we've allowed developers to set prices on the App Store, publishers set prices on the iBookstore.

Three of the five major publishers -- Hachette, HarperCollins, and Simon & Schuster -- have already settled with the DOJ. However, Penguin Group and MacMillan have vowed to fight the suit along with Apple.

However, leading antitrust experts say that the DOJ has a "far better case" for price fixing among the publishers than they do against Apple. One reason is that Apple was allegedly not present at meetings with the five publisher when they decided to fix eBook pricing. Another reason: it's hard to bring an antitrust case against a company who only controls 10% of the eBook market through its iBookstore. Amazon, on the other hand, has a 90% share of the eBook market.

Apple officially responds to DOJ's antitrust case originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 13 Apr 2012 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

While Apple has said it "is developing software that will detect and remove the Flashback malware" that has affected up to 600,000 Macs worldwide, it has yet to release any fix. In lieu of that a few security and antivirus firms have gone ahead and released their own Flashback removal tools.

Kaspersky Lab, a Russian antivirus firm, has released the Flashfake Removal Tool. The firm asks that you first check here to see if your Mac is infected with Flashback. If your Mac is, then you can download Flashfake to rid your Mac of the malware.

A second antivirus firm, F-Secure, has also released their own Flashback Removal Tool. Their tool works by creating "a log file (RemoveFlashback.log) on current user's Desktop. If any infections are found, they are quarantined into an encrypted ZIP file (flashback_quarantine.zip) to the current user's Home folder. The ZIP is encrypted with the password 'infected.'"

Before Kasperky Lab's and F-Secure's removal tools, users had to manually remove the malware by using OS X's Terminal, which some might have found confusing.

There's no word from Apple yet on when their own removal tool will become available.

Flashback malware removal tools released by security firms originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 12 Apr 2012 08:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

As a writer, I know how hard it can be to write without spelling, grammar or punctuation errors 100% of the time. That's why I find my editors (and sometimes even readers) extremely helpful when they point out a mistake. A few years ago I showed that Apple had posted wrong information about what iBooks could do. Two days later, Apple was nice enough to change their mistake.

Since I also write books on Apple's products, I usually go over their website with a fine-tooth comb in my fact checking maneuvers. Last night I found a mistake on their iPad features page that doesn't tell users how to use the new iPad's dictation feature correctly. The copy reads:

Write an email. Send a text. Search the web. Or create a note. And do it all with only your voice. Instead of typing, tap the microphone icon on the keyboard. Then say what you want to say while your iPad listens. Tap Done and, just like that, your spoken words become written words.

The only thing is there is no "Done" button to tap on the new iPad's keyboard after you've activated the dictation feature. The Done button is what you tap when dictating into an iPhone 4S. On the new iPad you simply tap the microphone icon again to stop dictation and then "your spoken words become written words."

Is this a big deal? No. Am I trying to embarrass Apple? Quite the contrary. It's easier to write a public post to get their attention than find the email of one of their dozens of copy writers.

Here's something a bit more embarrassing, however: Last night around two in the morning London time one of their web developers flipped the wrong switch and "announced" on Apple's Australian home page that "Tomorrow is just another day. That you'll never forget." Oops. That was a tease from the day before Apple announced The Beatles on iTunes way back in 2010.

Update: Apple has updated their iPad features page to fix the incorrect copy (see image below). It now reads:

Write an email. Send a text. Search the web. Or create a note. And do it all with only your voice. Instead of typing, tap the microphone icon on the keyboard. Then say what you want to say while your iPad listens. Tap the microphone icon again and, just like that, your spoken words become written words.

Apple gets iPad dictation instructions wrong (Updated) originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 11 Apr 2012 11:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

TUAW has learned that Apple has quietly begun making preparations for the "onslaught of journalists" that are set to arrive in London for the 2012 Olympics, which are less than four months away.

A high-level Apple retail employee here in London told me today that the company is planning to stock its London area retail stores with international replacement MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and MacBook keyboards. This way, the retail outlets will have the spare parts on hand should international journalists need a quick turnaround on a damaged laptop.

As my source told me, "London is going to be overrun by an onslaught of journalists when the games begin. We want to be prepared should they need help with their equipment during the time they are here."

Over 10,000 print journalists -- a large number of them Mac users -- are set to descend upon London when the games begin on July 27. That's not even counting all the professional videographers, TV and radio reporters and editors, photographers, bloggers, and new media journalists. However, press won't be the only Mac users coming for the games. With an expected extra 325,000 daily visitors to London for the games, Apple wants to be fully prepared to take care of all of its users.

While my source could only confirm at this time that London area stores will be stocking international replacement MacBook keyboards on hand, I was also told that Apple is considering carrying stock of MacBooks with American, Asian, and other international keyboards in the London stores. The stores can take advantage of the expected rush of international shoppers that may pump millions of GBP into the high street shops.

Apple prepping London stores for 2012 Olympics originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 10 Apr 2012 17:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

I just took ten minutes (hey, it's a comic book) and read Caleb Melby and Jess3's The Zen of Steve Jobs graphic novel and I think anyone who is a fan of comic books or Steve Jobs is going to like it. As I told you in September, the 60-page graphic novel is a re-imagining of Steve Jobs' life during the mid-1980s after he left Apple and before he founded NeXT. Specifically, it deals with Jobs' relationship with Kobun Chino Otogawa, a Zen Buddhist priest (who also married Jobs and his wife, Laurene Powell).

The writer, Caleb Melby, makes it clear from the get go that the graphic novel is not fact. He combines existing Jobs/Kobun interviews and biographies with his own interviews of several Kobun students who were contemporaries of Jobs. The result, enhanced with Melby's imagination is a really interesting story.

In the graphic novel, Jobs and Kobun clearly have a Luke Skywalker/Yoda thing going on (although Jobs is more of a jerk to Kobun than Luke was to Yoda). As the story progresses, the reader is treated to flashbacks and flashforwards of how the Buddhist principle of Ma eventually affected Apple's designs after Steve's return.

Speaking of style, Jess3's art is beautiful -- a combination of manga and western styles with clean lines and sweeping, single-color tones.

While this graphic novel is about Steve Jobs, Kobun is the most interesting character. His real-life death eerily mirrored the fictional Joseph Knecht's death in Hermann Hesse's The Glass Bead Game almost exactly, and Melby depicted that well (readers of both will probably note the similarities between the two before they even finish Zen).

The Zen of Steve Jobs finishes with some extras, like a fascinating afterword from the author about why he brought Steve Job's to life in comic book form, a mini-biography of Kobun and some interesting behind-the-scenes looks as to how the project was created.

The Zen of Steve Jobs is available in print from Amazon (US$10.28) or on the iBookstore ($9.99).

Review: 'The Zen of Steve Jobs' graphic novel originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 29 Dec 2011 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.