Quick! Download AirView Now, It Turns Your iOS Device Into An AirPlay Receiver

By Federico Viticci

AirView is a universal application available for free in the App Store that does something iOS users have been asking since the original release of AirPlay: it turns any iPhone, iPad or iPod touch into AirPlay receivers capable of playing videos streamed from another device. With AirView, in fact, video can be streamed from iOS device to iOS device (iPhone to iPad, iPhone to iPhone) or from iTunes, something that Apple only does with the Apple TV 2nd generation.

AirView must be running on a device in order to show up as receiver on a local network. The app doesn’t enable music streaming, a feature we managed to activate in the past with a jailbreak hack. Photos aren’t supported either.

AirView is a neat little app that we guess Apple will soon remove from the App Store. When used in combination with Erica Sadun’s apps that extend AirPlay’s functionalities, it can become a quite powerful tool. Go grab it here now.

Analysts and Bloggers Share Q1 2011 Predictions

By Federico Viticci

With Apple’s financial results for Q1 2011 only a few hours away, Fortune has posted its usual chart of predictions from professional and amateur analysts regarding Apple’s sales for the last quarter. To give it a bit of context, in the last quarter (pre-holiday season) Apple sold 3.89 million Macs, 14.1 million iPhones, 4.19 million iPads, 9.05 million iPods. The company posted record revenue of $20.34 billion and net quarterly profit of $4.31 billion.

Looking at Fortune’s chart, it appears that most analysts are predicting revenue between $23 and $27 billion, 14 to 16 million iPhones sold and 6 to 7 million iPads sold. Horace Dediu from Asymco, for instance, is predicting $25.50 billion revenue, 16.16 million iPhones sold, 18.87 million iPods, 4.30 million Macs and 6 million iPads.

Official numbers will be provided by Apple later today. An audio-only webcast of the conference call will be available here.

Reminder: Apple Q1 Financial Results Today – 5 PM ET

By Federico Viticci

Later today starting at 5:00 PM ET (2:00 PM PT) Apple will hold the Q1 2011 earnings call to announce their financial results, shortly after the markets close. An audio-only live streaming will be available at www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/earningsq111/. We will offer a breakdown of the results and have a post in the homepage with continually updating notes from the earnings call.

Apple is expected to post blockbuster sales from the holiday season, with iPads and iPhones to lead and the new MacBook Airs to follow. In the last quarter, Apple posted record iPhone and Mac sales with 14.1 million iPhone sold, 3.89 million Macs and 4.19 million iPads.The company posted record revenue of $20.34 billion and net quarterly profit of $4.31 billion.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced yesterday that he’s taking another medical leave of absence to focus on his health.

Creators Of “The Glif” Share The Story Behind Their Popular iPhone Accessory

By Federico Viticci

The Glif is a tripod mount / stand for the iPhone we have covered on MacStories quite a few times in the past months. Several accessories are announced and released every day; none of them goes from idea to the market in 5 months. None of them comes from an idea of two guys with no marketing, retail or manufacturing experience.

The Glif quickly jumped from cool Kickstarter project to Internet all-star thanks to the dozens of blogs and publications that thought the accessory was cool and deserved to be noticed by people in order to be manufactured and then sold. The creators have now posted an interesting “behind the scenes” article with all the details, pictures and videos of the Glif, from idea to actual product.

From the beginning, it was clear that simplicity was going to be a key tenet of our design. Not just for philosophical reasons, but to keep the design focused, and quite frankly, achievable. We knew that any complication to the manufacturing (moving parts, assembly, etc.) would make the project less likely to succeed.

After a round of sketching, we arrived at the general shape rather quickly: something that affixes to the corner of the phone and runs along the long edge, with a tripod screw roughly centered on that edge. One key component of our early design was a small peg located inside the shoe of the Glif, meant to be inserted into the headphone jack for extra stability. We were both in love with this feature, but in an example of killing your darlings, realized the design was better served (and more versatile) without it.

In case you haven’t considered a Glif yet, go check out the website here. This neat accessory with double functionality can be yours for just $20.

During Steve’s Absence, Apple Will Be Just Fine

By Federico Viticci

News broke earlier today that Steve Jobs is taking another medical leave of absence to focus on his health. And just like the last time, he has appointed Apple COO Tim Cook as the head of day-to-day operations. This time around, though, Steve Jobs will maintain the CEO position. Long story short: Steve Jobs has to focus on his health and personal life, something you would expect from a man who beat cancer in the past and successfully underwent a liver transplant. Apple employees will have get used to not seeing Jobs on campus or in his office for a few months. But I don’t want to speculate on Jobs’ conditions, habits and role at Cupertino. Instead, I would like to point out how out of this complex and much-talked story Apple as a company will be doing just fine. Read more

Apple to Newspapers: No More Free iPad Access For Print Subscribers

By Federico Viticci

According to various reports posted over the weekend, Apple has reportedly contacted several newspapers to inform them that they can no longer offer free iPad access to existing print subscribers. Many publishers, in fact, frustrated with Apple’s lack of recurring subscriptions with access to subscribers’ data, have put in place systems that allow print subscribers who have an iPad to get free access to apps using their previously created accounts. These systems, as you can guess, leave Apple’s standard 30% revenue cut of the equation as app access is offered for free. Read more

iTunes To Become Part Of Safari? We Don’t Believe It

By Federico Viticci

According to website Three Guys and a Podcast, Apple has been working on a major redesign of its iTunes software that will see the music manager / app organizer / media hub become part of Safari. The new system is rumored to be announced at Apple’s music event that should take place (as every year) in September and will be the evolution of Apple’s original plans during the lala acquisition.

Apple may be preparing a massive move that will propel Safari from niche browser to market leader. The move to merge Safari and iTunes into one software solution appears long in the works, which may arrive this fall at Apple’s usual iPod special event.

It is believed that Safari will be the only browser able to access iTunes, as iTunes is built into the browser itself. “Moving iTunes organizational side-bar into Safari isn’t a monumental task” claimed a source, adding “Safari would skyrocket in use as a result of integrating the software titles together.

Add Tasks To OmniFocus With Alfred →

Linked By Federico Viticci

Add Tasks To OmniFocus With Alfred

Don Southard shares an interesting tip on how to automatically fill OmniFocus’ Quick Entry window using Alfred, a Spotlight replacement for Mac:

Enter Alfred for Mac. A very handy tool that provides a very useful launch bar to OSX. The great thing about Alfred is that you can customize how and where it searches, allowing us the ability to integrate OmniFocus in to the utility. Another perk is that this method does not require OmniFocus to already be running to add a task. It is system wide and will wake up OmniFocus if necessary.

But why would you want to do that, when you can assign a keyboard shortcut to OmniFocus’s entry panel? Well, some people don’t want to remember dozens of shortcuts like we do. In this way, you only have to remember Alfred’s keyboard command (which most likely has replaced Spotlight’s default one on your computer) to get tasks into OmniFocus.

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Browser+ for iPad Aims To Reinvent Safari

By Federico Viticci

I have been trying a lot of alternative browsers for the iPad over the past months. Since my good friend @kenyarmosh suggested me to give a spin to iCab Mobile (for iPhone and iPad), my interest for well-crafted, feature rich and innovative third-party browsers reached a new level. And while I’m still digging into all the features offered by iCab (which is, without a doubt, the most powerful alternative to Apple’s default browser), I have also been testing other simpler, minimal browsers that aim at offering a different take on browsing the Internet on the tablet.

Browser+ HD for iPad, in spite of its not-so-appealing name, is the freshest and simplest browser I have found in the App Store so far. What Browser+ does is simple: it takes standard elements of web browsing such as tabs, address bar and history and completely re-imagines them as if they were built from scratch for the iPad. Pretty much like Flipboard did for web content that has to be consumed on a tablet’s screen. Browser+, sold at $0.99 in the App Store, doesn’t come with all the functionalities found in Apple’s Safari or iCab Mobile, but what’s there has been recreated to fit better on the iPad. Read more