At 354.57MB, this is a great honking update and there is much goodness baked into this dot-refresh of Apple’s popular consumer-grade photo app — just one of three Mac software patches released in conjunction with Apple’s spanky new (audible grown issues from Jobs’ grave) “resolutionary” iPad. The tablet’s just fine, but what’s up with that silly, made up word they’ve tagged it with?
In addition to being the home of a fairly tasty eponymous brew, Qingdao China is the place, sometime on Saturday, where the 25 billionth app from the iOS App Store was downloaded. And, what was the fateful app? A $0.99 kid’s game made by Disney. Hmm, let’s repeat that again — someone in China download a Disney app — not the least bit suspicious, is it?
The app-conomy is huge, but a new study claims that Apple’s economic footprint is bigger still. I don’t doubt Cupertino’s large and growing positive impact on the American economy, yet fundamental questions about the opportunities could and should be bringing home for the rest of us remain.
Back in 1999, the original iBook was the first production, mass market computer to ship with 802.11b networking built in. Since then the company was the first major vendor to market with faster and faster versions of wi-fi. And, by that I mean Apple chose to ship months and sometimes year before the standards had been set and settled.
One of the last unfinished thoughts Steve Jobs left us with was textbooks. Walter Isaacson’s seminal biography of the Apple co-founder teased that the next textbook publishing was the next industry the iconic technology visionary was seeking to revolutionize. That was the promise and today Apple has delivered the vision, as well as the tools — iBooks, iTunes U, iBook Author — to make it happen.
Who doesn’t like a juicy palace intrigue? To date there’s no visible hint of that at 1 Infinite Loop, but the potential — a nice enough place to start — for one exists. Although there’s no question Steve Jobs wanted Tim Cook to run the company, a new book also makes it clear that Scott Forstall probably wants the job more than anyone else.
Rumors that Apple will switch the iPhone from a USB to Thunderbolt interface have been making the rounds. And, honestly, it sounds like a reasonable move for our favorite fruit company as they’ve taken a lead role in not only promoting this tech but also delivering real, actual shipping Thunderbolt products.
Although I still don’t get the attraction, Apple’s latest effort to drive subscriptions on the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad is succeeding. Newsstand is, after all, just a glorified folder, but it’s nonetheless getting users to pay for digital magazines and newspapers — the proof is in the numbers.
Christmas really isn’t a day — it’s a season. For Twitter and Wolfram Alpha, iOS 5 ties are already beginning to pay dividends, but their good cheer is only just getting started. That is, Apple looks almost certain to deliver stellar iOS sales this quarter, which will drive partner results even higher.
For years, quite literally, notifications on the iPhone were poorly implemented, disruptive and something of an embarrassment. That changed with the release of iOS 5 and now a clever lad has figured out how to bring some of that goodness back to the Mac.
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