Japanese blog Macotakara reports that Apple will be redesigning the iPod nano later this year with a new form factor that more closely resembles an iPod touch. According to the report, the iPod nano will apparently sport a rectangular screen and a home button similar to that found on iOS devices.
Given that the screen size on this redesigned iPod nano would appear to be substantially smaller than the iPhone/iPod touch, it seems unlikely that the iPod nano would run iOS apps. Instead, Apple is likely to use a custom operating system and apps skinned to resemble iOS as found on the current incarnation of the iPod nano.
The report also indicates that Apple will be bringing a "dedicated new iTunes service" to the device, but there is no word on what that service would entail.
Apple's iPod lines have generally trended to smaller form factors with each redesign, but this rumored redesign would appear to mark a substantial increase in size from the current form factor, which was introduced in September 2010. Several leaked photos have suggested that Apple planned to add a camera to the smaller form factor, but it appears that the company may have ultimately scrapped those plans.
It would not be unprecedented, however, for Apple to decide that smaller is not necessarily better, particularly if the iPod nano can see increased functionality with the new design. Apple famously removed virtually all buttons from the iPod shuffle in March 2009 as it moved controls to the headphone cord, but a September 2010 redesign saw the return of the click wheel and other on-device buttons. read more..
Friday, 13 July 2012
Ipod Shuffle-Form Factor-Ipod Nano-Apple
Thursday, 12 July 2012
Hundreds Of Thousands-Production Agency-Videographers-Crowdsource-Mk Capital
High-quality video ads can be expensive to produce, running in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, depending on the ad format. But rather than hire a production agency to do their dirty work, Poptent proposes a better way for agencies and brands looking to produce video ads and other messaging: Crowdsource them. And it's raised a $5.5 million round of funding led by MK Capital to get more advertisers and videographers on board.Poptent has built a platform for crowdsourcing videos from users around the world, which allows brands and agencies to submit various assignments and receive finished videos in return. It's also got a pretty huge network of videographers from around the world -- more than 50,000 from 140 different countries -- who can respond to those assignments, giving advertisers plenty of content to choose from. read more..
Wednesday, 11 July 2012
Apple-Ipad
With rumors of an "iPad mini" launch in the coming months ramping up, there has been much discussion about just how usable such a device would be running at the 1024x768 resolution of pre-Retina iPad models. In particular, some commenters have pointed to Steve Jobs' October 2010 discussion of the 7-inch tablets from competitors that were just then hitting the market, where he outlined Apple's belief that such tablets were too small to be useful.
While we argued as long ago as last December that scaling the iPad display down to a rumored 7.85-inch screen would still maintain usability and we provided iPad- and print- friendly examples to allow users to test for themselves, many have remain unconvinced of the benefits of a smaller iPad.
Daring Fireball's John Gruber now takes another detailed look at what an iPad mini would entail, arguing that a 7.85-inch display on an iPad mini would be a very different experience from the 7-inch screen being used by competitors such as Amazon's Kindle Fire and Google's Nexus 7.So, how can we square the idea of Apple making an iPad Mini with Jobs’s remarks from just a year and a half ago? We could point out (again) that 7.85 inches is closer to 8 inches than 7, and that the exact size of the purported iPad Mini display offers 66 percent of the surface area of a 9.7-inch iPad, not 45 percent [as is the case with a 7-inch display]. We could point out (again) that, assuming Apple-recommended 44-point user interface tap targets on a display with 163 points per inch, it should offer tap targets of the exact same physical size as every iPhone made to date, thus avoiding the need for Apple to include sandpaper with the device.
Comparison of "iPad mini" to 7-inch tablets and full-size iPad (Source: @trojankitten, via Daring Fireball)
Gruber goes on to note that Jobs was panning small, expensive tablets running a version of Android never intended to be used on devices larger than phones and that the tablets hitting the market today are very different products. He also points to Jobs' repeated efforts at misdirection in which he publicly spoke out against certain ideas even as Apple was pursuing them, as well as Jobs' ability to quickly and decisively change his mind at times.
Beyond the size of the iPad mini, Gruber also addresses the topic of a non-Retina display in the device, suggesting that with Apple seeking to keep pricing down the display will be one of the main ways it can achieve its desired pricing while retaining significant margins. The iPad mini would naturally gain a Retina display a year or two down the road as pricing continues to drop.
Finally, in addressing pricing on the rumored iPad mini Gruber suggests that Apple could approach the $199 pricing seen on the Kindle Fire and Nexus 7 by leveraging its massive supply chain and economies of scale to bring its own costs down to the neighborhood of $150 and still maintain profitability. But even pricing of $249 could be competitive depending on hardware features and factoring in the benefits of Apple's extensive iOS/iTunes/App Store ecosystem for customers. read more..
Social Network-Glam
Glam Media is announcing a flurry of new features today centering around Ning, the social network building service that it acquired last year. Collectively, they give some sense of what Ning looks like once it has been integrated into Glam's business and products.Since Glam is primarily an ads business, perhaps the most important change is the fact that Ning creators can now run Glam ads in their community. Previously, if you had a network on Ning and you wanted advertising, you were mostly on your own. (In fact, Glam CEO Samir Arora says there were already two Ning networks had decided on their own to join Glam's advertising program.) Now, assuming you fit into one of the company's ad verticals, you can start monetizing in a more serious way, by running premium advertising from the network. read more..
Tuesday, 10 July 2012
App Store-Creators-Iphone
Tilt to Live was a fairly early hit on the iOS App Store. It used the iPhone's accelerometer to make a frantic but fun and addictive shooter. Now, developer One Man Left has released a very different game called Outwitters. We first saw the title at GDC earlier this year, and the final release version is just as nice as the one that was in development. The game offers up asynchronous turn-based strategy combat, in the same vein as Robot Entertainment's great Hero Academy. But there are a few big differences, the first being that the board is much bigger, and allows for a few new moves and turns. The backend is also built out a lot more. In addition to the usual games with friends and random players, there's a whole matchmaking league system, so the best players have a huge, well-run ladder to climb. There are three different races (one is free, and the others you'll need to buy), each with its own units and resources to deal with. In short, the game is gorgeous, perfectly designed and offers much turn-based action for players (like me, ahem) who really enjoy moving units around a board like this. Outwitters is a free, universal download, and everything in the in-game store is on sale right now for a limited time.Daily iPhone App: Outwitters is the new app from Tilt to Live creators originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 05 Jul 2012 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments read more..
Incubator Program-Nokia
Nokia may still be fighting some pretty major fires on its burning platform, but it's also building some bridges -- namely the Nokia Bridge incubator program -- to help those running from the flames, with financing of up to €150,000 ($185,000) to pursue new startups, before they've even paid a visit to VCs and angel investors.The activities in Nokia Bridge are a small but encouraging counterpoint to the fairly-constant, grim updates on the state of the Finnish mobile company, once the world's biggest by a long shot, and now under the gun with falling handset sales and dwindling cash reserves as it struggles to compete against the Apple/Android smartphone juggernaut. It's understood that there are already some 100 companies in the incubator -- dozens in the UK alone -- although Nokia has not published a list of them anywhere. Jolla, the startup formed by ex-Nokia execs that will try to give MeeGo phones another shot, is one of them. read more..
Monday, 9 July 2012
Public Alpha Version-Android Apps-Beta Version-Mac Version-Bluestacks
BlueStacks announced a public alpha version of their Android App Player for the Mac today at Google I/O.
The company had originally released a beta version of their App Player for Windows back in March. The software allows users to run Android apps directly on their Windows PCs, and the newest version begins to extend that functionality to the Mac.
While the Windows version allows you to run any Android app without modification, the early Mac version seems to be limited to 15 initial apps that comes bundled with the download. The bundled apps include Air Control Lite, Alchemy, Basketball Shot, Drag Racing, Elastic World, Facebook, Glow Hockey, Guns'n'Glory, Paper Toss, Pulse, Robo Defense, Seesmic, Twitter, Whatsapp, and Zebra Paint.
Their support page claims that "in the very near future", they plan on opening the Mac version up to over 400,000 Android apps:The BlueStacks App Player for Mac OSX (alpha) supports both Lion and Snow Leopard. You can test drive a fixed set of curated apps for the first release (alpha-1). In the very near future, BlueStacks will let you select from over 400,000 Android apps to play on your Mac.The alpha version is available as a free download from the BlueStacks website. read more..
Apple-Ios
Late last month, Wired covered the emergence of a cottage industry of businesses selling access to iOS developer betas prior to their official launch. Apple offers these developer betas to registered iOS developers. The fee for such a registration is $99/year. Some enterprising individuals have turned around and started selling their 100 possible device slots to users looking to install the iOS betas prior to their official launch.Behind the scenes, each service uses the same simple backdoor: Registered iOS developers can activate up to 100 unique device IDs (or UDIDs) for their account, an essential tool for testing apps on multiple devices. Once registered with Apple, the activated device is also able to run pre-release versions of iOS, though developers are forbidden from sharing pre-release software outside their own team.
Ignoring these warnings, activation services charge a small fee to add a customer’s device to their developer accounts. When they hit the 100-device limit, they just register a new account with Apple.This has been going on for a couple of years with no particular intervention from Apple. As Wired notes, it seems Apple just didn't seem to care, despite their wide availability.
That may have changed since the publication of the Wired article. MacStories has noted that many of the services listed in the original Wired article are no longer available. After reaching out to the sites, it seems that Apple has started taking action against these services. While most of our emails bounced, we heard back from one of the site owners (who asked to remain anonymous), who confirmed his hosting provider took down the site after a complaint for copyright infringement by Apple. Similarly, the CEO of Fused tweeted in a reply to Andy Baio that Apple had been “fairly heavy-handed” with DMCA requests to UDID-selling sites hosted on their network.MacStories exchanged emails with the owner of one of the services which made $75,000 since the release of the iOS 6 Beta in June. read more..
Running Windows 8 on your Mac
Whether it's for work or just out of curiosity, here are four options for flirting with the latest rough beast to shuffle out of Redmond. read more..
Patent Dispute-Lengthy Battle-Technology-Yahoo
Facebook and Yahoo have agreed to settle a patent dispute, averting a potentially lengthy battle over the technology running two of the Internet's most popular destinations. read more..