Posts tagged with "iOS"

Instagram Gains Native Twitterrific Support

Twitterrific by the Iconfactory is one of the most popular Twitter clients for iOS, and we’ve been hearing a brand new Mac version is around the corner as well. What at first may look like a minor update to Twitterrific for iPhone and iPad was released a few minutes ago in the App Store, and it adds a very welcome new feature: native Instagram support. I don’t know if any other Twitter app for iOS supports Instagram photos like Twitterrific does, but here’s the gist: instead of being forced to follow a link to Instagram to the actual website, Twitterrific will open the image into its dedicated popover, without leaving your timeline. That’s useful, considering how many people are using Instagram these days and how annoying it is to launch a web view every time. A similar integration can be seen on Twitter.com, where the inline media viewer can preview Instagram photos without opening a new browser tab.

The new Twitterrific update also introduces fixes to reduce API errors (I’ve been getting lots of them lately), support for photos shared on plixi and step.ly and restores the black theme as the default one. Last, Twitterrific finally supports the new Twitter links to tweets and usernames.

Twitterrific is available for free in the App Store. Our review here.

Infographic Confirms: iOS People Use Apps More Than Web Apps

As if that wasn’t obvious enough, now we have a fancy infographic to back up everyone’s theory that iOS users care more about native apps than web apps. Created by the guys over at Appsfire, which is a neat app discovery service, the report summarizes that users spend more time in software like Mail, Instagram, Dropbox and Skype rather than applications available on the open web, which account to 12% of usage among the 1,000 devices surveyed. According to Appsfire, 32% of the time is spent in telephony apps like Phone, Messages and Skype. Unsurprising, considering that the iPhone is, well, a phone.

As for the app vs. webapp debate, it’s worth mentioning that, for as much as web technologies have improved in the past years, some functionalities of native applications can’t still be replicated in a web software. Especially on iOS, developers don’t have access to the camera app through Safari, and animations aren’t as smooth as apps written in native Cocoa Touch language. It’d be great to see webapps rise to a true level of competition over time, but right now – just take a look at the infographic below. [TechCrunch via Appsfire]

Eric Schmidt: “Steve Jobs Is Absolutely Brilliant”→

Eric Schmidt: “Steve Jobs Is Absolutely Brilliant”

Soon-to-be-ex Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt has some nice words about Apple, iOS and Steve Jobs:

Schmidt also took on Google’s competition with Apple. Google partners with Apple, he said, on search, maps and YouTube. It competes, of course, on phones. Google also might in theory compete with Apple’s Macintosh computer business with its Chrome OS hardware that Google hopes “to announce later this year,” Schmidt said.

“Steve is absolutely brilliant,” said Schmidt, referring to Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, where Schmidt was a longtime board member. “(He’s) the most successful CEO in the world anywhere.” Comparing Apple’s iPhone and iPad platform to Android, he said: “They managed to build an elegant, scalable, closed system. Google is attempting to do something with a completely different approach.

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Apple & News Corp. To Hold Event on Feb. 2 To Announce The Daily

The Loop reports Apple and News Corp. will hold a media event in New York on February 2 to launch The Daily, the long rumored iPad-only digital newspaper that should rely on a new iTunes-based subscription service. This automatic billing system is rumored to be built into a new version of iOS, and we know Apple is currently testing iOS 4.3 with developers.

If the rumors are to be believed, will there be an “official” sneak peek at iOS 4.3 with subscriptions on February 2? And if The Daily will “launch” on that day, does it mean iOS 4.s3 is nearing its public release as well? Or maybe the subscription system doesn’t need to be built into iOS 4.3 at all, contrary to what the rumors suggested so far?

We will find out next week. It’s interesting that Eddy Cue, Vice President of Internet Services, will join Rupert Murdoch on stage to unveil The Daily. Perhaps these subscriptions functionalities don’t need to be baked into iOS, and could a server-side implementation on Apple’s end. It’s also worth considering that this is a News Corp. event with an Apple VP on stage – we don’t think Apple will provide an extensive preview of iOS 4.3 there.

We know that The Daily will be priced at $0.99 /week, as confirmed by News. Corp’s CEO James Murdoch.

BBC iPlayer App for iOS Launching Next Month?

In December, a series of reports suggested that BBC was working on a subscription-based version of the popular iPlayer streaming service for iPad, targeting a mid-2011 release only in “certain markets” with both free and paid versions.

According to PaidContent, the BBC iPlayer app for iPhone and iPad is now nearing final release and should be available by the end of February, ahead of BBC’s technology director Erik Huggers departure to Intel.

The service’s web-native version already works on iPhone and iPad, to a fashion. Executable app versions are likely to work a lot better. Some Android users have complained about lack of plans for their smartphones.

The service will be available only in the UK, though BBC Worldwide is planning an international, subscription iPlayer containing different shows.

The iPlayer service registered a record 145 million requests in December 2010, with users making 4% percent of those requests through mobile browsers. A native iPlayer iOS app could bring more features than simple streaming via Mobile Safari, like social integration, support for AirPlay, a better UI and a faster navigation system.

Berokyo Creates Bookshelves for Anything, Including Dropbox

Desktop organizer and quick launcher Berokyo has been around on the Mac and Windows for quite some time now. On the desktop, the app allows you to organize, sort and manage your most used files and folders for quick access and media consumption. The developers recently released a universal iOS version of the app, which like the Mac counterpart puts the focus on letting users visually organize their documents on a virtual bookshelf; unlike the desktop, though, iOS devices don’t have the possibility to display a file system. The developers thus had to rethink the whole approach of Berokyo, changing the way users get files into the app. Berokyo for iOS can create unlimited bookshelves for documents coming from other apps on your iPhone and iPads (like Pages and Numbers) but, most of all, can sync with Dropbox. Read more

Movie Player for iOS Plays Most Video Formats

If you feel sad about the removal of VLC from the App Store and you didn’t purchase the app in time before it got pulled, Movie Player is an interesting alternative I’ve been this past week you might consider for your portable movie needs. The app is universal for iPhone and iPad, it will cost you $2.99 and it’s got nice interface design and animations. Most of all, Movie Player can play most any video format you have on your hard drive, ready to be synced via iTunes.

The huge list of supported formats includes: divx, avi, flv, mov, wmv, mpg, mpeg, mpeg1, mpeg2, mpeg4, mp4, m4v , mpv, vob, ts, ogv, ogm, mkv, dv, asf, 3gp, m2p, m2ts, m2v, gxf, wm. I have tested the app with avi, mkv, mp4 and mov files.

In my tests, the app played most formats smoothly, launching files of 2GB in 2-3 seconds. I also would like to point out that I’ve run Movie Player against iOS 4.3 beta, which isn’t officially supported yet. I’ve only noticed slow downs with large movies that had .srt subtitles, also synced with iTunes’ file manager. The app recognized the subtitles but didn’t generate a thumbnail, and moving the scrubber through the movie was a little too slow. Anything else, however, worked perfectly under the new OS on the iPad and iPhone 4.

Movie Player allows you create playlists to watch videos one after the other without interruptions, very useful for TV shows and video podcasts. A small detail I particularly appreciated is the curtain-like animation that shows up when opening and closing a movie.

Movie Player definitely gets its job done, it hasn’t got many additional features but playback is smooth. At $2.99 in the App Store, give it a try. More screenshots below. Read more