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iOS 7 installs reach all-time high for beta software
Touch publishing company Onswipe has released web analytics of devices visiting its site that are running the beta version of iOS 7. Onswipe has found that the iOS 7 beta is by far the most popular beta yet. As noted by TechCrunch: The startup found that by July 1, 2013, 0.28 percent of all iPad visits to its mobile-optimized sites were from devices running iOS 7, and as of June 17, 0.77 percent of all iPhones making Onswipe visits were also on the new beta OS. Compared to iOS 6, those numbers, while small, have increased considerably. 0.19 percent of all iPad visits were on last year's beta software as of June 25, and only 0.38 percent, or under half of iPhones ran the pre-release mobile OS. All together, iOS 7 accounts for 0.46 percent of total traffic to Onswipe sites as of this writing, while iOS 6 was responsible for just 0.25 percent of all visits at the same time last year. What this number shows is there is approximately twice the excitement surrounding iOS 7 than iOS 6. As iOS 7 sees the most radical redesign since iOS launched six years ago, that is to be expected to some degree, but still these latest numbers bode well for Apple as it signifies high developer interest. Of course, however, not only developers are running the iOS 7 beta. But once again, we at TUAW would like to remind non-developers that they shouldn't be toying with iOS betas. iOS 7 will be released to the public later this fall.
The majority of iPad owners prefer landscape over portrait
Touch publishing company OnSwipe has released its first OnSwipe Sage report that details how users interact with the iPad. The report surveyed the habits of 127 million iPad users and this is what it found: While 41.2 percent of iPad users prefer portrait mode, 59.8 percent preferred landscape mode. The five most popular US cities for iPad usage are New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco and Houston. The most popular time for iPad usage is 10 PM local time. The top search engine used on the iPad is Google, followed by Yahoo, then Bing. Facebook accounts for the most social referrals on the iPad, with Twitter coming next, then Pinterest, then Reddit. In all, 54.8 percent of people use email to share things on their iPad. That's more than Facebook's sharing usage which is 28.9 percent on the iPad.
iPads can now see WordPress blogs in an optimized view
WordPress is the world's most popular blogging tool, with over 25 million users. The iPad is the world's most popular tablet device, with over 17 million shipped in 2010. What happens when you get these two popular kids together? Magic. Automattic Inc, the company behind WordPress, announced a new iPad-optimized view for all WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress blogs. The company has developed a new plug-in in cooperation with Onswipe that provides iPad users with a special experience, featuring touch controls that provide navigation of WordPress blogs through swiping, rotation and other gestures. The plug-in even knows how to properly format content based on the orientation of the iPad. As you can see in the screenshot at right, the iPad-optimized view displays posts in a visual grid, with individual posts readable with a tap. The plug-in is entirely HTML5-compliant, and it can be customized from the WordPress Dashboard to create a magazine-like cover page, display a logo on the cover and choose from nine different skins to match the overall theme of your site. For WordPress.com users, the plug-in is available with a touch. Self-hosted WordPress users just need to install the Onswipe plug-in available here. Automattic notes that WordPress.com is already seeing about 750,000 page views a day from iPad visitors, with the numbers rising rapidly.
