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Facebook reportedly back to building phones, recruiting former iPhone engineers
If the HTC Status' dedicated Facebook button fell shy of satisfying your obsessive social networking needs, sit tight: the house of Zuckerberg may be building a slab of tech just for you. According to the New York Times Bits blog, those old Facebook phone rumors are making a comeback. A handful of Facebook employees and engineers familiar with the matter reportedly say that the firm is collecting former Apple engineers, specifically, ones that worked on the iPhone and iPad. Like Zuckerberg said, mobile is the company's top focus, and one employee says the man at the top is afraid of getting overlooked in a sea of apps. "Mark is worried that if he doesn't create a mobile phone in the near future that Facebook will simply become an app on other mobile platforms." Facebook has focused on deep integration with other devices for some time, but a dedicated handset could take the freshly public company in new directions. Reports suggest that the rumored device is still in its infancy, and there's no word on form factor or OS, of course. Up for some speculation? Check out the source link below for Bits' full take.
Playsurface touchscreen computing table hands-on (video)
Let's be honest -- the first time we saw the Microsoft Surface in action, we all dreamt of getting our grubby fingers on our very own unit. Five years later, we're no closer to the dream of a touchscreen coffee tablet in every living room. Templeman Automation, thankfully, shares that dream. Earlier this month, we caught word of the company's Playsurface, a Kickstarter project aimed at bringing low cost touchscreen computing to the tabletops of eager early adopters who just can't quite justify the $8,000 price tag on Microsoft's similarly named product. We were excited at the prospect of finally getting to play with the product when TechCrunch opened up the gates to the hardware portion of its Disrupt conference. Unfortunately, as we quickly found out, things wouldn't be quite so easy -- the show was held at Pier 94, a space with overabundant natural light courtesy of rows and rows of skylights. As it turns out, the sun doesn't play too well with the infrared light that helps power Playsurface's touchscreen functionality. The table's creators were nice enough to pop by our offices to let us take the living room gadget for a test drive.
The TechCrunch iPad app is slick and simple
If you're looking for an app-based TechCrunch experience on your iPad, here it is. The iPad app is a streamlined experience over the site in Safari, presenting a simple list of categories to choose from, and 3 basic feeds: the main river (which can be narrowed using those categories), trending stories and curated tweets. There's a lot more under the hood, however. Commuters will be pleased to know there's a "Save for later" option when clicking the "Share" icon. You can, of course, also share stories via email or social media, and the app allows you to tie your Facebook account in (TechCrunch uses Facebook comments, primarily). My favorite feature is the easy access to Crunchbase data alongside each article. While it's easy to click into more info, the app never goes too deep to get you lost. I can't stand when apps just layer interfaces on top, over and over, and you have to "flip" the pages just to get back to the main screen. The TechCrunch app uses a familiar "back" and "next" system, although it is often labelled in context (Saved Articles takes you back to your list but Explore may take you further down the rabbit hole of data). This makes reading articles a breeze, and makes it easy to find out more information without being overhwhelmed. About the only problem I encountered was with the curated tweets. When jumping to a story on The Next Web, the smallish webview that takes up the lower half of the screen was overwhelmed by a slow cover-up from TNW urging you to register, or something, and it happened to cover the article I was trying to read! Aside from things beyond the app's control, such as annoying web design habits, it's a great way to read TechCrunch on your iPad. TUAW's imaginary friend, our own iPad app, is very jealous! The app is free, so give it a try yourself.
Apple to acquire Chomp app search platform
Having an App Store means never having to say "Sorry, there's no app for that" -- or at least not very often. With the massive success of the iOS App Store, however, there's also a discoverability problem: how do you find the apps you need? Searching by name or keyword doesn't always help, and some gems may be hiding just around the next page of results. The search tool Chomp, available currently for both iOS and Android, aimed to change that equation. Via the company's app or web tool, you can search for apps by what they do rather than what they're called. A proprietary algorithm digs into the app descriptions, reviews and capabilities to figure out what makes an app useful, and then exposes that analysis to eager app searchers and would-be purchasers. Such a capability, if it worked as advertised, would be very valuable. Seems like it does work and it is valuable, because our sibling site TechCrunch is reporting that Apple has bought Chomp. Chomp's current deal to provide Android app search features for Verizon's phones (awkward!) and its standalone app will probably go away once the Apple integration is finalized, according to MG Siegler's post. Like Apple's past high-profile acquisition of Siri, the Chomp technology could make its way into a future version of iOS alongside the obvious integration into iTunes & App Store search. In fact, putting a Chomp backend behind Siri's active assistance would be a natural synergy for iPhone users. "Siri, I need an app for web meetings that supports multi-person videoconferencing." Easy as can be. Update: Bloomberg reports the acquisition of Chomp cost Apple about $50 million.
Apple pulls iPad from Amazon China
The iPad has apparently been pulled from sale on the Chinese version of Amazon, but apparently the reason wasn't because of some Amazon competition overseas, or even that recent lawsuit against Apple trying to stop the iPad from selling in that country. Nope -- apparently, it was Apple. Amazon's China management says Apple was the company that requested the iPad be taken down from online sales in China. Proview Technology Shenzen, the group leading the charge against the iPad's Chinese sales, hasn't even contacted them or mentioned online sales in the lawsuit. So what's the deal? TechCrunch suggests that the pull is still somehow related to the Proview case, though Apple's not saying anything except that it's sure the decision will fall in its favor. It could be that this is a preemptive move, designed to shore up Apple's argument as the case goes forward. Maybe Amazon sales in China were low already, and pulling out of this market ensures that Apple's situation will look a lot less threatening as Proview tries to argue that they don't belong in China. Then again, it could be a completely unrelated matter: Maybe Apple is just seeing high demand overseas, and decided not to sell through Amazon's third-party store when things were already going so well directly. Whatever the reason, if you're in China and need to buy an iPad, you won't find one on Amazon.
Apple sends takedown notice about customer support email
If you've ever corresponded with Apple Support (or any major customer support outlet, really), you might have seen that little notice at the bottom of the email that says any conversation included "may be privileged and may contain confidential information." Most of the time, that's just a weak move to try and cover up any issues that customer support may cause. But in Apple's case, they sometimes try to take it seriously. David Bowles is a blogger who had an issue with his Thunderbolt display warranty, and when he corresponded with Apple about it, he posted it on the Go Inside magazine website. Just a little while after that, however, he received an email from Apple's tech support notifying him that they'd seen the "confidential" information posted online, and telling him that he should take it all down, under threat of "further action" (whatever that may be). After discussion with a support manager, Bowles eventually decided just to take down the correspondence from Apple (the rest of the post is still up, and TechCrunch is publishing the takedown notice), and that seems to have calmed the beast for now. So what does this mean for the rest of us? Probably not much -- Bowles emailed the link of the blog post directly to the tech support crew, so even if Apple is searching the web for its emails being posted, it's unknown if the company would have found Bowles email post at all. And though the takedown email did threaten "further action," it's hard to guess just what that further action would be. Even if Apple really did want to keep these emails from being published (and they probably don't really care, otherwise they would go after TechCrunch), it's hard to say what kind of legal ground they'd be able to stand on. In other words, much ado about nothing. As for Bowles, there's no news on if his Applecare warranty ever got fixed the way he wanted it, but his blogs sure didn't suffer for the attention.
Rumor: New Apple TV on the way, suggests TechCrunch
Our sister blog TechCrunch just posted a rumor suggesting that the current Apple TV might be replaced with a newer model in the very near future. As Matt Burns at TechCrunch reports, Amazon and Best Buy are now selling the second-generation Apple TV for $89, one full Hamilton less than the MSRP. Amazon has also marked the product name with the number "2010" in parentheses, perhaps suggesting that there will be a 2011 or 2012 edition rolling out soon. The existing model has been around since September 1, 2010, and a new device might very well replace the single-core A4 with a dual-core A5. That bump would help 1080p playback and smooth out the UI on the Apple TV. Burns believes that if a new Apple TV is on the way, it would be likely to hit the market before the holiday buying binge starts -- perhaps as soon as the next few days. If not, a refresh wouldn't be likely until 2012.
Woz praises the iPhone 4S on TCTV
Steve Wozniak is first in line for the iPhone 4S at the Apple store in Los Gatos, California and TechCrunch caught up with the Apple co-founder to conduct a quick interview. TechCrunch asked him the one question everyone wants to know - why does he wait in line when he could get one shipped to his house? Not surprisingly, Woz says he joins everyone in an overnight wait because he enjoys both the experience of the wait and the excitement surrounding a new piece of technology. He also talks about Siri, a new feature he considers to be the future of technology. He explains how he is tired of tapping on everything and looks forward to seeing how Apple has advanced this technology. Head over to TechCrunch for the full interview.
Facebook for iPad out now
TechCrunch and a few other sites are posting that the Facebook iPad app has finally arrived on the App Store. I don't quite see it on the store yet, but the news has apparently dropped according to a schedule run by Facebook itself, so the app should follow soon. The app looks ... about like you'd expect a Facebook iPad app to look, with a sidebar available in landscape mode, and a dropdown menu to browse the various sections in portrait mode. One of the biggest features of the new app is integration with other apps -- apparently the app can send you directly to other apps on your iPad when you browse to them from a friend's status or news post. For example, if you read about a Words with Friends move on a friend's status, you can click a link on that post, and be sent right out to the iPad version of Words with Friends (or, if you don't have it installed, you'll get sent to the App Store app to download it). That will help developers a lot with connecting users up on their various platforms. At any rate, as soon as it shows up in the App Store, we'll give the app a full runthrough and let you know what we think. As soon as we see a link, we'll update this post with it. Update: Here's a link! Enjoy.
Skype adds Groupme to social portfolio, sets sights on mobile market
Sure, we're still waiting for that Microsoft-Skype deal to close, but it looks like Redmond's about to get more than it initially bargained for. Skype announced today that it has reached an agreement to snatch up Groupme, the mobile group messaging service that made a splash at Google I/O. Outfit head honcho Tony Bates told TechCrunch that Skype needs to invade the mobile space if it hopes to reach its goal of scoring one billion users, and cites Groupme's "sticky group messaging experience" as the ideal mobile addition to the Skype family. But don't take our word for it, hit the break and dig the PR for yourself.
Hidden Facebook app for iPad no longer working for many
Early yesterday morning we told you that TechCrunch had found Facebook's much-awaited iPad app inside the code of its iPhone app. Not only did TechCrunch find the Facebook iPad app's code, they managed to get the actual app running on an iPad and took it for a full spin. Shortly after the TechCrunch report, numerous people began doing the same thing. Obviously nothing about this situation made Facebook happy and they've since found a way to disable access to the app. Despite using the multiple online step-by-step tutorials, users who have managed to install the Facebook app on their iPad have found that they can no longer get past the login screen. This isn't much of a shock as it's easy for Facebook to tell who is logging in from what app on what device and simply deny access when it's coming from their unreleased iPad app. Interestingly, people who did manage to install and run the app before Facebook began blocking it still have some limited access. TechCrunch's MG Siegler, who discovered the app, says that he is "still able to click around the app, though certain things (like notifications) are acting strangely or not functioning at all." There's been no comment yet from Facebook about the iPad app discovery, but from all reports the app seems to have been fully functional, which suggests that it could be released any day now.
A primer on group messaging apps
If you follow our tech startup sister site TechCrunch, or if you've read any of the reports from the South by SouthWest (SXSW) conference this year, you've probably seen a lot of column inches given to current-media-darling "group messaging" apps. SXSW has a reasonable track record of predicting the Next Big Thing. It was where Twitter first came to many people's attention in 2007, for example, and it was an early success story for Foursquare in 2009, too. My usual reaction to hype like this is to roll my eyes and avoid the apps in question altogether, although that might just be because I've never blagged tickets to SXSW. Eventually, though, TechCrunch's relentless enthusiasm wore me down, and I took a look at one of the commonly mentioned apps, Beluga. To my surprise, what I found was a slick, well-designed app that solved a communication problem I didn't know I had. That'll teach me to be cynical! Before I explain what I liked about Beluga, an aside: there are a number of other significant group messaging apps, including GroupMe, Fast Society, Yobongo, the soon-to-relaunch Betwext Talk and the brand new, bought-by-Google Disco. However, international availability of these apps is spotty. For example, at the time of writing, only Beluga and Yobongo were in the UK App Store -- this is probably because these apps incorporate free-to-the-user SMS features that are tricky to make work cheaply internationally. As I'm in the UK, this means I can't do a detailed review roundup of all the apps. Look for this in a future TUAW post by one of our American bloggers. I'll use Beluga as an example to demonstrate concepts that are common to all the group messaging apps.
In defence of the SuperDrive
Echoing our own Michael Grothaus last year, MG Siegler hopes Apple drops the DVD drive from future Macs: "Just like the floppy disk before it, the optical disc will fade into irrelevance. And now you see why Apple has never included a Blu-ray drive in any of their machines." Erica Sadun wrote a post last week asking if you agree that the disc is dead, and over 65 percent of respondents said they did. I agree the days of the optical drive are numbered, but I also think there's more life left in it than Siegler does. I only own a single Mac -- a mid-2009 15" MacBook Pro. It doesn't have an optical drive because I replaced it with an MCE Optibay housing an SSD, whilst keeping a 500 GB HDD in the normal hard drive bay. This means that whenever I want to use the optical drive, I have to get it out of my desk drawer and plug two USB cables in, so I know I've used it several times in recent weeks. Notably, I still rely on that optical drive for quite a few things.
Blizzard, Zynga sued over gaming patent
What's an upstart company to do in a world dominated by deep-pocketed publishers and corporate titans? Sue them, of course! Walker Digital, the brainchild of Priceline.com founder Jay Walker, made headlines by suing Facebook late last year and has now completed a legal double-play by filing a patent infringement suit against Zynga and Activision-Blizzard. The alleged misconduct hinges on a "database driven online distributed tournament system" that Walker Digital claims has been infringed upon for games ranging from Mafia Wars, Wolfenstein, and Call of Duty to Blizzard's behemoth World of Warcraft MMORPG. TechCrunch has all the details, including an embed of the original complaint documents.
Rumor: No 4G for Apple in 2011
Are we tired of all the rumors around a 4G Verizon iPhone yet? First it's off, then it's on, and now it's off again. TechCrunch's Steve Cheney claims he's heard from sources that Apple won't support the 4G/LTE cell network in 2011, which means that we won't see a 4G iPhone next year. Cheney claims Apple is going to wait on the standard, and instead implement a dual-mode GSM and CDMA iPhone sometime in 2011. That still leaves the possibility of other carriers open, though, and it does corroborate what we've heard from the Wall Street Journal, which said a while back that Apple would bring a CDMA-enabled iPhone out on Verizon's network. Honestly, at this point, it's all just a blur -- we've heard rumors for almost years now that Apple would release an iPhone on one technology or another, and to date, there are no (non-jailbroken) iPhones in the US that run on anything but AT&T's 3G network. As with all of this stuff, nothing is legit until we see Steve actually holding it up there on stage.
HP's Bradley: HP isn't trying to be Apple, will sell 15 million webOS printers next year
It's no secret that HP's Todd Bradley is one of the leading candidates to succeed ousted CEO Mark Hurd, and it doesn't look like he was doing much to dissuade that notion at the now happening TechCrunch Disrupt conference. In addition to addressing a question about whether it's ethically wrong to charge so much for ink by responding "ask me next year, if I take the [CEO] position," Bradley also sounded more than a little like a CEO throughout, and made a fair bit of news in the process. That includes a confirmation that HP won't be licensing webOS to other companies, and the attention-grabber of a statement that "emulating Apple is not part of our strategy." As if that wasn't enough, Bradley also made the rather bold promise that HP will sell 15 million webOS-based printers next year alone, and he predicted that tablets will become a $40 billion market within the next few years -- a market that HP plans to enter in a "big way." Head on past the break for a video of the interview.
Facebook phone rumors resurface, Mark Zuckerberg fails to deny them
Let's try to untangle this Facebook mobile phone mess, shall we? Mark Zuckerberg has recently sat down with Michael Arrington of TechCrunch -- the source of the original rumor -- to try and dispel some of the confusion that has arisen as a result. The first thing the Zuckmeister says is that Facebook isn't looking to build its own OS or hardware and is absolutely opposed to competing with the likes of the iPhone and Android. What Zuckerberg wants is deeper social integration, positing the question, "What could we do if we also started hacking at a deeper level?" While there'll be no single answer or solution for all phones, Mark firmly believes that social elements have to be designed in from the start: On phones we can actually do something better. We can do a single sign-on if we do a good integration with a phone, rather than just doing something where you go to an app and it's automatically social or having to sign into each app individually. Those are the two options on the web. Why not for mobile? Just make it so that you log into your phone once, and then everything that you do on your phone is social. Notably, he fails to deny rumors of such deeply integrated devices being in the pipeline, and Bloomberg has trotted out a trio of insider sources who claim INQ Mobile has been engaged to produce two smartphones with just that purpose in mind -- you know the same INQ that already makes Facebook-heavy handsets, so this could very well be little more than a rebrand. One is said to feature a QWERTY keypad and a touchscreen while the other is an all touch affair, and both are reputedly headed for an early 2011 launch in Europe, followed by a late 2011 arrival in the USA. AT&T is the carrier that's closest to picking them up, we're told, though deals haven't been finalized on what could be sub-$100 phones after subsidies are distributed. So, whatever happens, we're staring down the barrel of a couple of glorified featurephones with deep social integration. Kin 2.0, anyone? Anyone?
Apple warns App Store name squatters
TechCrunch reports that Apple is cracking down on "app name squatters," developers who create an app and reserve a name on the App Store, but don't actually upload files to release and sell the app. Apparently this is an issue -- personally, I can't immediately think of any names that I'd need to have on the App Store (maybe it's something really generic, like iReader?), but there are supposedly a few developers who have a certain name in mind, but can't use it because a squatter has locked it up in iTunes Connect. In fact, our own Victor Agreda foresaw this problem a while back, and now it's popped up on Apple's radar. There's good news, though. Apple will now send out a warning after 90 days of locking up a name with no actual files uploaded, and then 30 days later will delete the record on the App Store. And notices are going out; developers who've sat on a name for more than 90 days already are getting their 30 days' notice now. If that app you're planning to put out there has taken a little longer than expected to go through the final coding process, you might want to get on it. But Apple doesn't say that it will actually check. While the app will need to meet all of the other guidelines (including the rules for minimum functionality), you could probably still release a small app under the name you want, and then upgrade and release the full version later on. We'll have to see what happens with devs who really want to reserve App Store names in the future. [via AppleInsider]
Joojoo lawsuit shocker! Court rules Fusion Garage and TechCrunch were business partners, tosses most everything else
It's been a few blissful months since we've thought about or had to interact with the Joojoo, but the court case Michael Arrington and TechCrunch filed against Fusion Garage just reached a significant milestone: the judge threw out several of Arrington's claims while importantly holding that TechCrunch and Fusion Garage were in fact business partners with legal obligations to each other. Here's the basic timeline so far: since there was (unbelievably) never a contract between TechCrunch and Fusion Garage to develop the CrunchPad / Joojoo, TechCrunch had to rely on a variety of alternative arguments in its initial complaint, which reached a zenith of optimistic fabrication in something called "misappropriation of business ideas." (We ran down the whole list way back in December, and also broke down Fusion Garage's subsequent motion to dismiss in February.) The court didn't buy most of those arguments and dismissed everything but the breach of fiduciary duty claim in this latest ruling, which is both a significant loss and a significant win for TechCrunch: breach of fiduciary duty has always struck us as TechCrunch's strongest argument, and the court's now effectively ruled that Fusion Garage and TechCrunch were indeed involved in a joint business venture with legal obligations to protect each others' interests. That's not a bad position from which to proceed -- although TechCrunch now has to prove that Fusion Garage actually violated its duty by releasing the Joojoo on its own, which is a whole new fight. (The court also gave TechCrunch 20 days to try and amend some of its other claims, but "misappropriation of business ideas" was basically thrown out the window entirely.) So what's next? We're guessing another few months of cheerfully hostile motions accusing the opposing party of thwarting discovery and some firecracker depositions, all culminating in a matched pair of snippy motions for summary judgment. The suits, they dine well tonight. P.S.- How or why either company continues to pay for all these legal bills is beyond us, but we've actually heard rumors of a Joojoo 2, so things could get even crazier. And potentially even less responsive to touch-based events.
Report: Zynga planning to ditch Facebook, start 'Zynga Live' service
Facebook and Farmville developer Zynga may go separate ways, causing the casual game developer to find another coop for its geese to lay golden eggs. TechCrunch reports that Zynga CEO Mark Pincus held an all hands meeting the other day informing staff that the company was going to launch "Zynga Live." The basic issue here is that Zynga isn't cool with the 30 percent cut that Facebook takes from customers using Facebook credits to purchase Zynga's in-game products. The breakup could happen "tomorrow, it could be in six months" according to a TechCrunch source. The real test if the companies seek other pastures is whether Zynga's games, like Farmville and Mafia Wars, keep bringing in that casual crowd without the massive installed base of Facebook. Hardcore gamers can have a hard time following the differences between a platform, publisher and developer -- you think their moms won't? [Via Games.com]