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Daily Update for June 4, 2012
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
First issue of WIRED re-released as an iPad app
Are you a fan of WIRED Magazine? The first issue of the Condé Nast tech magazine appeared back in January of 1993 with futurist Bruce Sterling talking about war and MIT Media Lab's Nicholas Negroponte pontificating about "What's wrong with HDTV." WIRED fans who want to relive the past of the future (think about it...) can now get a free iPad version of that first issue. To read WIRED 1.1.1, you're going to need to have the existing WIRED Magazine app (free), which is loaded into the iOS Newsstand. Look for an icon for "The Premiere Issue Revisited" to download the material, but make sure that you have a lot of free space on your iPad to hold the 1.3GB file. You'll also need a lot of time to download that issue. The first issue has been replicated, annotated, and includes a full photo archive and a 12,000 word oral history. For WIRED readers or those curious about a tech magazine that has survived almost 20 years when others have gone by the wayside, it's an awesome read. The two-page Apple PowerBook advertisement is worth the download time alone! [via The Verge]
Wired, GQ in-app purchase subscriptions launching today
Condé Nast has officially launched subscriptions today for iPad editions of Wired and GQ. The Wired and GQ apps are free, and readers can buy either single issues at US$1.99 a pop or a full year for $19.99 through in-app purchases. The subscriptions automatically renew until you cancel them, so if you're curious about the magazine and don't want to be billed monthly for single issues, buy the subscription and cancel as quickly as possible. Current subscribers to the print versions from the US and Canada can access their digital subscriptions from within the app at no extra cost. Past digital issues of Wired are available for in-app purchase for $3.99, and you'll be able to do the same with back issues of the digital edition of GQ. You can read a full TUAW review of the Wired app here. Show full PR text WIRED SUBSCRIPTION NOW AVAILABLE ON IPAD New York, N.Y. – May 24, 2011 – WIRED is excited to announce that subscriptions for its game-changing iPad app will be available through In-App Purchase on the App Store beginning today. Starting with the June issue, featuring a special report produced in collaboration with NPR's Planet Money on the future of American jobs, WIRED will offer monthly and yearly iPad subscriptions and will continue to offer single issues, all via In-App Purchase on the App Store. Subscriptions to WIRED will be available for $1.99 per month or $19.99 per year. "WIRED thrives on progress across platforms, whether it's in the magazine, on the website, or on the iPad, " said VP and publisher Howard Mittman. "When the app launched last year it was the first to show how interactive and innovative the medium could be. Now, by offering our readers a subscription on iPad, WIRED is poised to lead the digital publishing conversation and reach a wider audience." Current WIRED print subscribers can access iPad editions immediately through their current subscription. Those who would like to purchase new print subscriptions, which include access to the iPad edition for $19.99, may do so at www.wired.com. The WIRED app is available as a free download from the App Store on iPad or at www.itunes.com/appstore. GQ SUBSCRIPTIONS NOW AVAILABLE ON iPAD New York, N.Y., May 24, 2011- GQ subscriptions for iPad are now available through In-App Purchase on the App Store, it was announced today by the magazine. Beginning with the June issue, featuring Alexander Skarsgård, star of HBO's True Blood, GQ will offer monthly and yearly iPad subscriptions and continue to offer single issues, all via In-App Purchase on the App Store. Subscriptions to GQ will be available for $1.99 per month or $19.99 per year. Current GQ print subscribers will be able to access iPad editions immediately through their current subscription. Those who would like to purchase new print subscriptions, which include access to the iPad edition for $19.99, may do so at GQ.com. The GQ App is available as a free download from the App Store on iPad or at www.itunes.com/appstore. About GQ GQ is the leading men's general-interest magazine, with a monthly readership of 6.6 million readers. It is available in print, online at GQ.com, and as an app at iTunes.com. The magazine is published by Condé Nast, a division of Advance Publications. Condé Nast operates in twenty-five countries and is the world leader in exceptional content creation.
More info about the physics of Angry Birds than you need to know
If there's anything I love to read, it's analysis of the commonplace items in our lives by physicists, engineers, and mathematicians. That's why I was attracted to a recent Wired Dot Physics post by physicist Rhett Allain in which he did a Tracker video analysis of the most important characters in Angry Birds -- the birds. By using the official Angry Birds walkthrough videos on YouTube with Tracker, Allain was able to determine several important factors -- that the birds exist in a drag-free world (no air resistance), that the sling shot is huge (5 meters -- 16 feet) tall, and the birds are good-sized as well. Y'know that little red bird? He's about 70 cm (27.6 inches) tall. That's a big bird! To see how Allain used Tracker to plot the horizontal and vertical motion of the birds in flight, follow his analysis, and review his assumptions, be sure check out the original post.
Entelligence: Wired or tired?
Entelligence is a column by technology strategist and author Michael Gartenberg, a man whose desire for a delicious cup of coffee and a quality New York bagel is dwarfed only by his passion for tech. In these articles, he'll explore where our industry is and where it's going -- on both micro and macro levels -- with the unique wit and insight only he can provide. In the mid 90s, a friend of mine was involved in a project to recreate magazines like Time on CD-ROM for the multimedia PCs of the era. The results were pretty cool, but the CD-ROM versions of the publications hardly replaced their print counterparts. Content has since moved from optical disk to the web, and now the allure of tablet devices has created a market for specific newspaper and magazine apps -- the number one paid app for iPad is a digital version of Wired, which sold about 1,000 copies an hour the first day it was launched. While it's a much better effort than some of the other efforts, more than anything Wired for iPad shows the weaknesses of media apps and demonstrates how the tablet remains a still-imperfect medium to deliver this type of content. Wired's efforts, like the CD-ROM efforts of the past, by has some cool features. A video clip of Toy Story 3 graces the cover and there are various interactive features, but more than anything else, it feels like a scanned in copy of the paper mag. Although navigation is better than most iPad magazines, it's still never clear when a screen should be scrolled down or just swiped horizontally.
Adobe's Digital Publishing Platform behind Wired app, uses CS5 tools and will be available to all
So, despite all that hubbub about Flash, Adobe managed to still deliver iPad magazine publishing tools to Wired after all... and it's not stopping there. Adobe's "digital viewer software" is the crux, which Adobe says it built in Apple's Objective C and will continue to maintain for the iPad while considering other platforms like the iPhone. Meanwhile, anything built matching this vaguely defined spec (Adobe's keeping a lot of details close to its chest right now) will be able to publish to this iPad reader software, along with any Flash 10.1 or AIR 2-compliant devices. HTML 5 will also come in to play somehow. Adobe will be releasing the publishing tech to Adobe Labs later this year, but you'll have to have Adobe InDesign CS5 to take advantage of it. Of course, none of this really solves the debate over 3rd party development tools for building iPad and iPhone apps, but it seems to sidestep it pretty handily.
Wired does a first iPad edition: It rocks, but costs too much
This is what e-magazines should have always been. A sparkling layout, embedded animations, video and audio. Compared to what Wired has done, the other magazines offered, like Time and Popular Science, feel pretty much like tarted up PDF files. Adobe created the translation for the iPad for Conde Nast, publisher of Wired. Originally, it was going to be Flash based, but when Steve Jobs put the clamps on that, Adobe re-did everything in Apple-approved Objective-C. Wired for iPad, released today, is a dazzler. There are 3D renderings you control by moving your hand, videos that look crisp, and some interactive features that are very helpful in getting a full understanding of the subject matter. I especially enjoyed the tour of the Mars missions, the tribute to the Industrial Light and Magic special effects factory, and the interactive view of what is inside Worcestershire sauce. Many of the ads are interactive as well, finally giving readers a reason to learn more about a product. %Gallery-93744%
iPad apps: defining experiences from the first wave
There are now over 1,348 approved apps for the iPad. That's on top of the 150,000 iPad-compatible iPhone programs already available in the App Store. When Apple's tablet PC launches, just hours from now, it will have a software library greater than that of any handheld in history -- not counting the occasional UMPC. That said, the vast majority of even those 1,348 iPad apps are not original. They were designed for the iPhone, a device with a comparatively pokey processor and a tiny screen, and most have just been tweaked slightly, upped in price and given an "HD" suffix -- as if that somehow justified the increased cost. Besides, we've seen the amazing potential programs have on iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Windows Mobile and webOS when given access to a touchscreen, always-on data connection, GPS, cloud storage and WiFi -- but where are the apps that truly define iPad? What will take advantage of its extra headroom, new UI paradigms and multitouch real estate? Caught between netbook and smartphone, what does the iPad do that the iPhone cannot? After spending hours digging through the web and new iPad section of the App Store, we believe we have a number of reasonably compelling answers. Update: Now includes Wormhole Remote, TweetDeck, SkyGrid, Touchgrind HD, GoToMeeting, SplitBrowser, iDisplay, Geometry Wars and Drawing Pad.
Videos: Wired, VIVmag showcase iPad offerings
One of the elusive goals of tablet computing has been to totally replace print media with something new. To date, nobody has been completely successful. When the Windows-based Tablet PCs shipped in the early 2000s, for instance, there was a lot of talk about how magazines would move completely to electronic publishing platforms such as Zinio. Well, here we are in 2010 and many of us still have print magazines showing up in our physical mailboxes on a regular basis. But it could be that the new generation of tablet devices, as heralded by the iPad, could finally create such a great user experience that most magazines would finally make the jump from "dead-tree" to electronic versions. Two magazines well-known for their content, typography, and art design have produced videos highlighting their upcoming offerings for the iPad. Wired Magazine is featured in a video that appears to have been produced by Adobe, highlighting how the magazine plans to use interactive advertising, social tools, and a very paper-like user interface to bring the Wired experience to tablet devices. The second video is from ViVmag, an online woman's magazine touted as "the first interactive all-digital luxury magazine for women." The VIVmag video shows how the magazine plans to use dramatic animation to move between elements in a story. Both videos give you a taste of what we might expect to see starting shortly after April 3rd. Click the Read More link to view the videos, and let us know iif you've already given up paper-based magazines or if you'll still need your paper copy of Popular Mechanics for bathroom reading material.
Wired's tablet app goes on show: developed on AIR, heading to the iPad (video)
Mmm, digital magazines. They are the little bites of paid-for content that all the publishers believe we should be deeply enthralled with. Hoping to show us why exactly it is that we should all care (and pay) for prepackaged digital content is Wired's latest and most comprehensive demo of its tablet app on an unspecified 16:9 device. Setting aside hopefuls like the Joojoo and Adam for a moment, it is clear that this is ultimately intended for Apple's iPad -- the device that stands by far the biggest chance of making the digimag concept a commercial success. Interesting choice of development partner, then, as Condé Nast has opted to use Adobe's AIR platform for the underlying mechanics. Adobe promises its Packager for iPhone, part of CS5, will allow devs to easily port AIR apps to run natively on the iPad, but until Apple gives its official assent to the final code, nothing is guaranteed -- and Packager hasn't even officially shipped yet. As far as the app goes, it'll come with Twitter and Facebook integration, and navigation is geared toward the touching and swiping model so prevalent today. See it on video after the break.
Wired shows off an Apple tablet-formatted copy of Wired on a fake Apple tablet
It's a wild land of imagination over at Wired and Condé Nast these days. The pair have managed not only to dream up a colorful, animated copy of Wired magazine for the so-far imaginary Apple tablet, but actually whipped up a concept of a Apple tablet to go with it. The Willy Wonka-style pairing are being shown off at the Wired Store in New York, and go along with word the other day that Condé Nast was taking the development of "iTablet" versions of its publications very seriously. Perhaps a bit too seriously? We're not ones to judge. Video of the tablet is after the break.
Apple tablet(s) in 2H 2010 with OLED screen and tailored content in tow?
Rumors of the mythical Apple tablet's release were just starting to coalesce around an early 2010 release, so naturally DigiTimes is now reporting that the much ballyhooed device won't show up until the second half of next year. Apple is said to have given itself more time to swap out internals and install a 9.7-inch OLED display from LG, which meshes with earlier rumors about where the relationship between the two companies was heading. Sources expect the opening retail price to be around a hefty $2,000, but for the budget-conscious there will also be a 10.6-inch LCD version that will land somewhere between $800 and $1,000. Or so we're told. Somewhat more concrete is the news that Conde Nast, publisher of Wired Magazine, has openly confirmed that it is developing a digital version of its tech magazine for consumption on the Apple tablet, with the rest of its content catalog to soon follow. Its own estimate of having the paid-for digitized magazines, which will include Vogue and GQ, ready for the middle of 2010 also jibes with the reported delays. Then again, Apple has refused to discuss the unannounced device with anyone, leaving Conde and Adobe developing the necessary software in the dark.
Nick Neg flashback: Why HDTV will never catch on
As a celebration of the magazine turning 15 years old this month, Fimoculous uncovered this little gem from back in Wired's heyday, the very first issue: "High-definition television is clearly irrelevant." That's Nicholas Negroponte, of OLPC fame, making some bold predictions from his inaugural column in the back page of Wired. Sure, his thoughts on user control of when and what we watch really hit home with the YouTube generation, but his lack of interest in resolution seems a bit silly if you've stepped inside a Best Buy at any point this decade. That said, it's certainly worth a quick read before you run to the attic and dive into your archives. [Via Fimoculous]
Martha Stewart makes an edible Wii
We're not sure if this is a good thing, per se, but the August issue of Wired magazine features a "Martha Stewart blowout" (never thought we'd write those words in the same sentence) with the queen of gracious living giving tips on a number of geek-related topics.In the spotlight: Martha shows us how to bake a Wii cake. Sounds ... yummy? Who cares, it's cake, and it looks like a Wii. We'll eat it. Hopefully another magazine will catch on to this trend and get Christopher Lowell to show us how to make a Wii-shaped entrance to our verandah.[Via Infendo]
