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  • Apple holding iPhone OS 4 event, April 8th!

    by 
    Joshua Topolsky
    Joshua Topolsky
    04.05.2010

    Yes folks -- the world is turning upside down. Apple has announced an iPhone OS 4 event on April 8th at 10AM PT for a "sneak peek of the next generation of iPhone OS software." So if you're wondering about the future of the platform... your answers will appear sooner than you think. The team collectively dropped an "OMG" when we saw this news, as it's pretty unusual to see such a big event coming from Apple right on the heels of something like the iPad launch. Of course we'll be there -- at Apple's Infinite Loop campus in Cupertino -- live and direct, providing the liveblogging coverage you know and love.

  • Adobe AIR developer demonstration: one game, five platforms, all the same code

    by 
    Sean Hollister
    Sean Hollister
    04.05.2010

    We love the idea of Android apps running on iPhone and vice versa, and that's exactly what Adobe's selling with its multiplatform development solution AIR -- but though we've seen a demo here and there, conversations we've had with the company led us to believe that AIR was not yet up to the task. However, Adobe dev Christian Cantrell has the proof -- he created a game of Reversi that runs on five platforms without having to change a single line of code. In a video after the break, he demonstrates iReverse running on OS X, Windows 7, Ubuntu Linux, the iPhone, a Droid and the new iPad, explaining how it took only a series of seriously tiny platform-specific wrappers to make his program function on each. Since each platform has its own hardware strengths, this kind of convergence isn't always a good thing -- but if it provides extra incentive for developers to get cracking on hot new apps, we're all for it.

  • SDK devsugar: 3.2 leaves beta

    by 
    Erica Sadun
    Erica Sadun
    04.04.2010

    As of yesterday, with the release of the iPad hardware, the 3.2 iPhone OS SDK is no longer in beta. The SDK is now available to all members of the iPhone developer program, including the free online program. Normally, during beta, the SDK is limited to paid members only. Since the SDK is now in general release, the NDA will have timed out as well. That means that you will be able to talk freely about the 3.2 SDK outside of Apple's developer forums. Although those forums remain an excellent resource for tracking down information from Apple engineers, they are highly moderated. Since the 3.2 gold master release of the SDK is also known as "Beta 6", you can expect (with a fair degree of confidence) that a new beta should be showing up, behind the NDA and paid developer barricades, in short order. Hopefully, it will address any missing-in-action iPad features and offer some new iPhone-specific features.

  • iPad 'Spirit' jailbreak demonstrated by MuscleNerd, now it really is magical (video)

    by 
    Richard Lai
    Richard Lai
    04.04.2010

    You better believe it when notorious iPhone jailbreaker MuscleNerd -- a well-respected member of the iPhone Dev-Team -- declares root access on an iPad. According to this fella's tweets, this new hack is a port of Comex's "Spirit" jailbreak that exploits a bug found on both iPhone OS 3.1.3 and the iPad's 3.2. No downloads are offered right at this moment, but it shouldn't be long before we can throw in all sorts of wild apps and widgets as we wish. Video after the break. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

  • iPad OS digging reveals hints of future iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and Nessie

    by 
    Darren Murph
    Darren Murph
    04.03.2010

    Well, well -- what have we here? A little digging into the mainframe that lies beneath Apple's freshly launched iPad has uncovered a few telltale signs of next-generation hardware, and while this is obviously in no way confirmation that new wares are on the way from Cupertino, this kind of stuff has led to similar reveals in the past. If we're seeing this right, we're looking at not one, but two new mentions of future iPhones (iPhone 3,2 and iPhone 3,3), alongside a new iPod touch (iPod 4,1) and... a future iPad (iProd 2,1). 'Course, none of this gives us any indication of the all-important whos or whens, but at least this confirms that mythical creatures still exist in the hearts of those who believe.

  • Stats: iPhone OS is still king of the mobile web space, but Android is nipping at its heels

    by 
    Vlad Savov
    Vlad Savov
    03.29.2010

    AdMob serves north of 10 billion ads per month to more than 15,000 mobile websites and applications. Thus, although its data is about ad rather than page impressions, it can be taken as a pretty robust indicator of how web usage habits are developing and changing over time. Android is the big standout of its most recent figures, with Google loyalists now constituting a cool 42 percent of AdMob's smartphone audience in the US. With the EVO 4G and Galaxy S rapidly approaching, we wouldn't be surprised by the little green droid stealing away the US share crown, at least until Apple counters with its next slice of magical machinery. Looking at the global stage, Android has also recently skipped ahead of Symbian, with a 24 percent share versus 18 percent for the smartphone leader. Together with BlackBerry OS, Symbian is still the predominant operating system in terms of smartphone sales, but it's interesting to see both falling behind in the field of web or application usage, which is what this metric seeks to measure. Figures from Net Applications (to be found at the TheAppleBlog link) and ArsTechnica's own mobile user numbers corroborate these findings.

  • Survey finds people eager to 'work on the go' with iPad, we wonder what line of 'work' they're in

    by 
    Darren Murph
    Darren Murph
    03.24.2010

    So, give this a listen -- a survey from the lairs of Sybase has found that among smartphone-owning respondents, some 52.3 percent of them "would use a tablet device such as the Apple iPad is for working on the go." We fully understand that this phrase leaves open the possibility of using tablets not Designed in Cupertino, but the mere fact that it's highlighted gave us pause. We're still trying to figure out how exactly Apple's forthcoming tablet is going to fit between our daily laptop and workhorse-of-a-smartphone, and without a major overhaul of the iPhone OS, we definitely can't visualize ourselves using it for "work." 'Course, maybe they're into something that doesn't require the use of multiple applications at once, and maybe the dearth of a real keyboard isn't much of a productivity killer, but we're just not sold on the iPad being a bona fide work machine as-is. So, what say you? Are you one of those 52.3 percenters? Or do you relate more with the vocal minority?

  • Apple now accepting iPad app submissions, get your jumbo-sized beer drinking simulations in before launch day

    by 
    Paul Miller
    Paul Miller
    03.19.2010

    Apple just announced to developers that it's now accepting iPad applications. From the sound of it, applications submitted now will have a shot at being reviewed and approved before the iPad launch next month, though since most all apps developed so far have only been tested in the emulator, this is more of a "feedback" round for devs looking to be ready for the launch without actually testing their apps on hardware themselves. Apple says that "[o]nly apps submitted for the initial review will be considered for the grand opening of the iPad App Store," so you probably shouldn't wait around -- unless you've got one of those iPad test units headed your way, or you're a hardware-testing purist that will wait for the iPad launch to start testing apps and miss one of those cushy spots on the opening day iPad App Store. Either way, we can't really imagine we'll be seeing true 3rd party iPad app greatness until a month or so after the launch, but who are we to talk down a "gold rush"? Update: We just saw that the deadline for getting apps in for the first round is March 27 at 5PM PT. Fire up that SDK 3.2 beta 5 and start cracking!

  • AirStash brings the WiFi, neglects the storage, for a cent under $100

    by 
    Vlad Savov
    Vlad Savov
    03.16.2010

    When we last saw the AirStash, it was keeping its mystique about it and refusing to disclose any salient details beyond the fact that it'll function as a wireless SD/SDHC card reader. Today, the fog of war is lifted with the news that the AirStash is now officially on sale for $99.99, and will come with a battery good for five hours of continuous data streaming. Marketed primarily at iPhone OS devices, it creates a wireless network that allows any WiFi and browser-equipped computer to access the storage cards within it. The UI is built around HTML5 and recharging is done via a USB connection, which also turns the AirStash into a simple SDHC card adapter when plugged in. Check out our hands-on with it from CES over here and look for a full review coming up shortly. We do care so very deeply our portable storage.

  • More suggestions of multitasking in iPhone OS 4.0

    by 
    Dave Caolo
    Dave Caolo
    03.11.2010

    Developers have found further evidence of multitasking support for 3rd party iPhone apps in the latest beta (3.2 beta 4) of the iPhone SDK, and suggest that it will become a reality this summer. 9to5 Mac reports on a new line found deep within the latest iPhone SDK. Specifically, SpringBoard.js has a reference to a "multitasking dialog box" that did not appear in version 3.1.3 of the SDK; it seems that it's new to version 3.2. Of course, there's no assurance that this refers to 3rd party support for multitasking, but it is new. Additionally, Appleinsider's souces with "proven track records" state that Apple has developed "a full-on solution" for 3rd-party multitasking which will be a part of iPhone OS 4.0. No specifics were given on how it will be pulled off or how it will address the two main concerns: battery life and security. Let's assume that Apple's plan addresses the security issue, but battery life still presents a problem, one that was supposedly addressed by Push Notifications. Apple's remote notification service allows applications to offload polling processes to web servers. By keeping the update algorithms working off the device, the iPhone's battery is spared. Certainly the iPhone itself must take on the task of keeping all of those apps up and running. It should also be noted that iPhone OS does not use a paged memory model. That means, multi-tasking applications must compete for the same memory space, making it more likely that apps will receive memory warnings and even crash when they use too much memory. That's not an issue in the one-app-at-a-time space, but a real problem with multitasking Of course, the iPhone OS is already fully capable of multitasking. In order for non-Apple apps to participate, Apple must lift the current restrictions within the OS. That's something the company won't do until the iPhone engineers have devised the best and safest method. As for iPhone OS 4.0, Appleinsider notes that it's got "a ways to go." Hopefully we'll have an answer in July.

  • iPad SDK 3.2 beta 4 squashes rumors of a camera, but adds new gesture controls

    by 
    Nilay Patel
    Nilay Patel
    03.10.2010

    There's only about a month to go before Apple drops the iPad on the world, and it looks like all those theories about a last-minute camera addition were just fond fanboy wishes -- iPhone SDK 3.2 beta 4 just came out, and in addition to stripping out several video-call related icons, we've been told the docs contain this little tidbit about that Camera tab: Launching the Photos application under the iPad Simulator will initially show three tabs: Photos, Albums, and Camera. The Camera tab represents photos available via the Camera Connection Kit for iPad, and is not relevant for the Simulator. The Camera tab will disappear after a few seconds. So much for that, then. In the meantime, we also have some good news -- 9to5 Mac did some digging and found some files indicating that Apple's opening up some new gestures to app developers, namely the long tap currently used to pop up the copy / paste menu and the triple-tap used to flip the display on and off when using VoiceOver. It's a small consolation, to be sure, but at least the iPad, will, um, be a great game machine, right? [Thanks, Anonymous]

  • iPhone devsugar: Unit testing for iPhone view controllers

    by 
    Erica Sadun
    Erica Sadun
    03.10.2010

    Unit testing refers to a software validation methodology that allows programmers to test individual program units for correctness. It's been an ongoing question in the iPhone developer community as to whether the iPhone's view controller class is testable or not. In response to these discussions, iPhone developer Jonah Williams has written up a view controller unit testing how-to over at the Carbon Five web blog. His write-up offers examples that show how to incorporate some best practices into your code. Williams points out how broken NIB bindings are a common problem for iPhone OS applications. To address these issues, he regularly adds simple assertions that test that each IB outlet and action are set properly from inside his view controller class implementations. These assertions check that IBOutlet instance variables are not set to nil and that IBAction targets have been assigned, adding a layer of protection against broken bindings. Another typical view controller issue involves responding to application memory warnings. To respond, he adds tests that ensure that each view-dependent property gets correctly released and re-created as views unload and then later reload. By building these into test methods, he can execute this behavior on demand, and ensure that the sequence will execute flawlessly in real world conditions. Finally, Williams discusses view controller interdependencies. Often instances are tightly intertwined, with objects acting as clients for each other. For example, a simple table view controller, living within a navigation controller, might present a detail view via yet another view controller when a row is selected. That's three separate controllers to account for, when you really only want to test one at a time. Williams suggests isolating these view controllers away from their interdependencies to test each component separately and provides examples of how you can do so. What made Williams' approach pop for me is how he carefully exposes and isolates dependencies for testing. These are features that can otherwise be hard to inspect and validate in the normal course of programming. His write-up is well worth reading through, and provides an excellent jumping off point for investigating view controller unit testing.

  • iPhone SDK 3.2 beta 4 drops in

    by 
    Chris Ziegler
    Chris Ziegler
    03.09.2010

    Suspense! Drama! Surprises! Unrealistic expectations! It's always a veritable roller coaster of emotions whenever Apple gets around to cutting a new SDK build -- and without a doubt, iPhone SDK 3.2 beta 4 is no exception. We don't yet have a good read on what's new here, so if you're a member of Apple's $99 dev program and happen to get it downloaded and installed, let us know if you find anything awesome, like an iPhone 4 or iPad 2. Or, you know, anything else. Have fun!

  • TUAW redux: The future of iPhone OS and Mac OS

    by 
    Erica Sadun
    Erica Sadun
    02.26.2010

    One of the big topics of discussion yesterday in our TUAW back channel was this post from the New York Times Bits blog. In "Why can't PCs work more like iPhones," Bilton pointed out that the iPhone has given Apple a chance to build a new OS from the ground up. This is a familiar viewpoint to us here on TUAW. Last year, I asked whether the future of the Mac OS would turn out to be the iPhone. In my write-up, I pointed out that the iPhone OS was built from scratch to work with Objective C 2.0 with its properties and other modern language features. Its API, far from being cobbled together, showed ever increasing design maturity without the weight of heavy backwards compatibility concerns. I concluded that Apple might take a lesson from the iPhone OS and consider offering a ground up redesign for Mac OS X, at least in terms of core OS principles. In his post, Bilton considers how Mac OS X might integrate iPhone OS features into its user experience, suggesting a possible Front Row-like overlay layer, running an iPhone OS interface. The goal would be to craft iPhone-style GUI simplicity onto the desktop experience, so that users could move seamlessly between their mobile and desktop worlds. But as much as we believe that Apple is heading cautiously in the direction that Bilton suggests, the TUAW consensus is that a desktop OS needs far more structure and, at the same time, flexibility than what the iPhone OS offers.

  • iPhone SDK 3.2 Beta 3 available now

    by 
    Erica Sadun
    Erica Sadun
    02.23.2010

    The new beta version of the 3.2 SDK (beta 3, for those of you keeping track) is now available for download. The Apple developer site will likely be getting slammed over the next hour or two, so plan your downloads accordingly. The beta is available to all paid members of the iPhone developer program, with at least the $99/year membership. You will need your credentials to sign in and download the new SDK. As usual, the new beta SDK is under NDA, so please go check out the details for yourself to get further information about the changes between this beta and the last. Good luck, and happy programming! Update: 6PM Pacific. It's baaaaaaaack. Update: Here then gone? Readers report that Apple seems to have pulled Beta 3 for the moment and when I returned to Apple's iPhone developer site, I saw the same. Watch this space. We'll update as we find out more. Update: This was not an accidental upload, per Michael Jurewitz, the Mac and IPhone Applications Frameworks and Developer Tools Evangelist:

  • iPhone SDK 3.2 moves on to beta round 3

    by 
    Chris Ziegler
    Chris Ziegler
    02.23.2010

    As we march toward the inevitability of a post-iPad world, so marches the development of iPhone SDK 3.2 -- and this time, we're on to beta 3. There's no word yet on what's changed, but unless you're a registered (and paid) member of Apple's iPhone Developer Program, it doesn't much matter to you seeing how you can't get in on the download. Keep us abreast of the trials, tribulations, highs, and lows of your downloads and installs, won't you? Update: TUAW now reports that beta 3's been pulled, but it's not yet clear why. We'll fill you in more as we find out. Update 2: iPadInsider reports that a Photos app has been added to the emulator, and there's a Camera tab in it -- possibly corroborating evidence that there'll be a camera in some version of the iPad, but more likely a tool for the camera connection kit. Update 3: MacRumors has a couple more interesting details. Looks like there's a couple of lines in the code that suggest a front-facing camera (as often rumored), zoom, and camera flash is in the cards. Additionally, there's iPad-sized "Accept" and "Decline" buttons with video camera-related iconography. We know what you're thinking, but we still wouldn't advise getting your hopes up anytime soon. It's not good for your heart, y'know. Update 3: ...and it's back up. Thanks, everyone!

  • Gartner: Apple, Android, and RIM winners in 2009 smartphone growth, Nokia and Symbian still dominate

    by 
    Thomas Ricker
    Thomas Ricker
    02.23.2010

    Gartner just released its annual numbers for worldwide mobile phone sales to end users in the year known as two thousand nine. Looking at smartphone OS market share alone, Gartner shows the iPhone OS, Android, and RIM making the biggest gains (up 6.2, 3.4, and 3.3 percentage points from 2008, respectively) at the expense of Windows Mobile (off 3.1 percentage points) and Symbian (off 5.5 points). Although Gartner says that Symbian "has become uncompetitive in recent years," (ouch) it concedes that market share is still strong especially for Nokia; something backed up by Nokia's Q4 financials and reported quarterly smartphone growth by 5 percentage points. Regarding total handsets of all classifications sold, Nokia continues to dominate with 36.4% of all sales to end users (down from 38.6% in 2008) while Samsung and LG continue to climb at the expense of Motorola (dropping from 7.6% to 4.5% of worldwide sales in 2009) and Sony Ericsson. See that table after the break or hit up the source for the full report.

  • iPhone devsugar: Simulating device events with iSimulate

    by 
    Erica Sadun
    Erica Sadun
    02.17.2010

    Anyone struggling with the challenge of developing for the iPad, a platform whose hardware has not yet been released, should welcome iSimulate. For just ten bucks, you can test your applications using event inputs from a real device. Yes, you'll be working with the limited geometry of an iPhone -- fewer pixels, not the same device shape -- but you'll gain access to a much wider range of gesture and accelerometer events to help you debug and develop your apps. Using iSimulate involves little more than compiling in a framework and running an iPhone-based application that you download from the App Store. You'll need to add -ObjC to your linker flags and include the Core Location framework. This latter is needed in order to provide simulated compass and GPS events to your app. Once run in the simulator, iSimulate will automatically find that running app and offer to link to it. It took me only a few minutes to bring my Xcode project into iSimulate compliance and get it working with the iPhone. In use, I found the entire process of interacting with my phone to generate events on the Simulator far easier and more intuitive than I expected. I suspect I'll keep using iSimulate over the next few weeks until the iPad debuts and can comfortably recommend it to other devs. TUAW is commonly provided with not-for-resale licenses or promo codes to permit product evaluations and reviews. For more details, see our policy page. Promo code requests are not guarantees of reviews.

  • Bill Gates thinks the iPad needs a keyboard, Disney CEO loves it as it is

    by 
    Vlad Savov
    Vlad Savov
    02.11.2010

    Here, finally, is one point on which the two giants of computing, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, completely disagree on. Steve says netbooks are better at nothing, whereas Bill's view is the polar opposite: "You know, I'm a big believer in touch and digital reading, but I still think that some mixture of voice, the pen and a real keyboard - in other words a netbook - will be the mainstream on that." Unimpressed by the iPad, Bill goes on to say that he considers it a "nice reader," but not something that made him wish Microsoft had done it first. Don't tell that to Disney CEO Robert Iger though, who brings out the dreaded "game changer" tag when describing the potential he sees in the iPad for the creation of "essentially new forms of content." Lest we forget, Steve Jobs also sits on the Disney board, so this could be just a friendly tip of the hat by Iger. Either way, we're curious to see what new content Disney might scratch up, as well as to find out who's right in this newfound binary question: keyboard-equipped netbooks or longevous, ultrathin tablets -- what say you?

  • iPhone SDK 3.2 beta 2 busts loose

    by 
    Chris Ziegler
    Chris Ziegler
    02.09.2010

    You've got to be one of the cool kids that shelled out a Benjamin to get into the iPhone Developer Program to get access, but if you're already a card-carrying member, it looks like you've now got a green light to download beta 2 of the iPhone SDK for OS 3.2. We don't know what's new, changed, or removed, but presumably, most of the updates would center around the sundry changes Apple has made to support the iPad in the latest version of its mobile platform -- so drop us a line and let us know what you find, alright?