Live from GDC 2010, Rene talks to Bob Koon of Binary Hammer about the Creature24 project that tried to make a complete, polished iPhone game in 24 hours.
The goal of Creature24 was to create a real, polished iPhone game in 24 hrs, transparently on the internet. They didn’t make their deadline, but were valiant in the attempt. They’re going to complete the game, and perhaps do an iPad version of the challenge (with a slightly expanded time limit) next year.
Watch along after the break!
The Wall Street Journal reports that, with the iPad arriving in stores and on doorsteps in just a few weeks, Apple is still “scrambling” to secure content deals for their magical and revolutionary new device. Why?
Apple hasn’t yet reached a deal with many major TV producers on the price cut, these people said. Some are concerned a price cut could hurt their existing businesses, these people said, including jeopardizing the tens of billions of dollars in subscription fees they are paid by cable and satellite companies for their traditional TV networks.
At the same time, some magazine and newspaper publishers said they are hamstrung by several factors that could delay the apps they are developing for the iPad from being ready by the time of the device’s release.
iBooks is the exception, but is it because book publishers are smarter, more desperate for the digital age, or just softened by existing devices like the Kindle? 9to5Mac provides our favorite answer to why TV and other companies aren’t racing to embrace the iPad: they’re self-destructively crazy (via the Viacom vs. Youtube lawsuit):
According to Patently Apple, Apple is laying the foundations for a potential iGroups app that would allow like-minded iPhone (or iPod touch and iPad users, presumably) to set up MobileMe-powered social networks at events like WWDC (Apple’s yearly World Wide Developers Conference).
The idea is to allow groups of friends or colleagues attending such events as a concert, a tradeshow, business meeting, wedding or rally to stay in communication with each other as a group to share information or reactions to live events as they’re occurring. The technology behind the new iGroup social networking applications works with a very sophisticated cryptographic key generation system to ensure security and privacy of your communications. Interestingly, the patent states that if one of the devices in your group happens to be without true positioning technology, it appears that Apple’s MobileMe service will provide some sort of “virtual GPS” capability to that user so that they could be aware of the locations of others in the group. Apple’s patent provides us with example scenarios of both a concert and WWDC event to clarify the service. This marks Apple’s fourth social networking application made public since the start of 2010 – which clearly indicates that Apple now has this hot new sector in its crosshairs.
As with anything Apple patent-related, whether or not it ever makes its way in front of consumers is anyone’s guess. Still, this looks interesting and given how other companies and devices are embracing the social experience, it’s something Apple has to be paying attention to.
You want?
Chad and Rene discuss iPad pre-orders, GDC 2010, iPhone 4.0 rumors, Google vs. Apple, Windows Phone 7 series, and all the week’s news. Listen in!
NAVIGON’s new MyRegion is a customizable version of their turn-by-turn MobileNavigator app for iPhone that basically lets you buy just the navigation you need, when you need it, and expand via in-app purchase later.
Three “regions” are available in the US — Western [iTunes link], Central [iTunes link], and Eastern [iTunes link]. Each region is currently on sale for $24.99 until April 12, at which point they’ll be regularly priced at $29.99. Getting an additional region via in-app purchase will cost $12.99 on sale ($14.99 regularly).
What’s included?
NAVIGON MyRegion includes all the features and capabilities as MobileNavigator 1.4 plus NAVIGON MyRoutes. This new feature will be added to MobileNavigator North America via an upcoming update to 1.5.0 due this spring. NAVIGON MyRoutes is an industry first feature that learns from the users driving style to provide customized and better route recommendations. The feature also offers up to two alternative routes clearly displayed on a map including ETA, distance and driving time. This lets user choose the route that best serves their individual situation.
If you don’t already have MobileNavigator and on-board maps are a must-have but not necessarily a have-all, give MyRegion a shot and let us know what you think!
Apple director Jerome B. York passed away today at the age of 71. President and CEO of Harwinton Capital, former CFO of IBM and Chrysler, and former vice chairman of Tracinda, he joined Apple’s board when Steve Jobs came back to the company. Apple’s CEO had the following to say:
“Jerry joined Apple’s Board in 1997 when most doubted the company’s future. He has been a pillar of financial and business expertise and insight on our Board for over a dozen years. It’s been a privilege to know and work with Jerry, and I’m going to miss him a lot.”
Apple is also paying their respect via the Apple.com home page (pictured above).
All of our hearts and condolences go out to the York family.
Here we have the Gracie Gear sports tops with handy PowerPouch for your iPhones or iPods for about $25.00 to $50.00. Gracie calls it the handsfree experience and yes, it is liberating. These tops are great for anyone who enjoys getting fit and for those who simply want to look like they are getting fit (I’m eating chocolate as I write this!).
Stay with us till after the break to find out more about Gracie Gear and how to enter the giveaway ! Read the rest of this entry »
HTC has sent out a press release in response to the patent infringement lawsuit Apple recently fired in their direction. CEO Peter Chou is quoted:
“HTC disagrees with Apple’s actions and will fully defend itself. HTC strongly advocates intellectual property protection and will continue to respect other innovators and their technologies as we have always done, but we will continue to embrace competition through our own innovation as a healthy way for consumers to get the best mobile experience possible.”
The full presser lists out all of HTC’s “firsts” in the industry but gives no indication about what, if any, counter-suit and patent infringement claims of their own they might use to return fire.
We did say this could take years, right?
[via Android Central]
Rene talks to Marc Edwards of Bjango about iStat [$0.99 on sale - iTunes link] for iPhone, iPod touch, and… iPad!
iStat lets you monitor the resources on your iPhone, including voice and data usage, RAM, storage, networking, up time, processes, and more, and remotely monitor resources for your Mac, Linux, or Solaris server. Additional tools include ping and traceroute. If you want to sit on the sofa and watch your octocore’s CPU’s to see when that big transcode or render is done, or if you want to try and narrow down a problem on your server floor from the coffee shop, give iStat a shot and let us know what you think.
Note: If you’re a fan of iStat Menus on the Mac, they’re running a poll [Google Spreadsheet link] on future versions so head on over and let them know what you think about price points and features.
Watch along after the break!
Apple has released iPhone 3.2 SDK Beta 5 for iPad and developers can commence their downloads via developer.apple.com.
As always, it will take the deep code divers some time to figure out exactly what’s different in beta 5, and let us know about any hidden goodies that might be inside.
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