Tag: iOS

Habit List

We all have bad habits and need help with breaking them…and starting out new healthy habit’s in their place. One app that I’ve found to be quite useful is Habit List for iOS. The app allows you to add a habit that you want to track and has some great options around scheduling. You have full control over when the habit appears on your daily list – weekdays, everyday or only certain days.

My Habits

To cross off that you’ve achieved one of your habits you just swipe across it in the app – very satisfying. You can also just tap them for speed but I really do like to swipe. You can also set reminders within Habit List and one of the slightly strange recommendations (but it works) is to set a habit of reviewing your habit list and set it to remind you at the end of the day. Really helps keep focus on your progress. I also ping one in for the start of the day so I can set in my head the habit’s I want to promote which are always harder to do.

Habit List tracks your progress

Habit List does two things to try and keep you motivated. Against each habit you will see your streak – how many times in a row have you kept to your goal. It’s a great incentive to keep the streak going but there will be days where you just can’t find the time or you’ve fell into your bad habit. The second way that Habit List helps is by tracking your history. The app will show you a calendar view of which days you’ve maintained the habit. Is it always the same day that you break the habit?

The app is well designed, iOs only and at only £1.49 it’s found a place on my home screen.

Hero Academy

My pick this week is Hero Academy from Robot Entertainment, a light weight alternative to chess with great graphics and some strategic depth that isn’t obvious on your first few games. It is a universal app for iOS only and is free with in-app purchases to allow you to play with other teams within the game.

Hero Academy - I'm in trouble!

The aim of the game is to destroy your opponents crystals or knock out all of your opponents team. The game is entirely multiplayer against friends or randoms. Each player has a round, with a round made up of five turns. In that turn you can deploy units, move units, upgrade or heal units or attack your opponents. The game will randomly give you units and upgrades which you can place on the board, upgrade, use to heal your troops or hurt the enemy or alternatively swap out for another random unit.

There are a number of board layouts and there are some strategic tiles on the board which can really turn the game if used correctly. Stand on the crystal to weaken your opponents crystal, stand on the sword or shield to increase your defence or attack power. One critiscism with Hero Academy is at first it can feel like much of the game is hidden from you – what does this character do, how best to use them etc but play the game more and you will unlock it’s secrets. It’s a shame there isn’t a single player game as I found my first few games were mostly me being the whipping boy – think Call of Duty if you start playing a couple of weeks after everybody has started and your weapons suck and you don’t know the maps – Hero Academy can feel like that at first but stick with it.

To Help this, Robot Entertainment have put together a Hero Academy game guide thats well worth reading. Alternatively the staff at Tap magazine uploaded a good strategy guide video thats worth watching (embedded below).

As I’ve said, Hero Academy is free to play but only comes with the Council team playable. There are another three teams that you have to pay to unlock (£1.49 per team) and I was worried at first that the teams had purely cosmetic differences but each teams has different units and strengths/weaknesses so it extends the gameplay massively.

Hero Academy - In App Purchases

I’d suggest though sticking with the free Council team initially and once you understand how best to play with Council then move on and purchase a new team. One negative with Hero Academy though is that it is fairly aggressive serving out advert’s. These disappear with one in-app purchase so it might be worth your while buying a new team just to kill the ad’s – that’s what I did. It’s also worth noting that the in-app purchases don’t make it easier to win or play – a good move by the developers as I hate games that give you pay options to make it easier especially

Great audio and graphics coupled with hidden depth makes for a really fun game. The latest update also made Hero Academy a universal app so full support for the iPad is now included. Well worth playing but don’t blame me when Hero Academy starts eating up all your spare time.

Paper

Paper is a new sketch and note taking iPad app from FiftyThree. Considering the iPad is two years old it’s a later addition to an already saturated market so whats marks out Paper when compared to the other sketch tools? Simplicity.

Paper is free and is well worth downloading. You can have a number of sketch books, the only customisation option being the name and cover photo of the book. Touch on a book to open the book in a coverflow view of the pages. Swipe through the pages and when you reach a page you want to edit touch on it. You will be presented with a blank page. No lines, no toolbars. Just one default tool that allows you to draw on the page. Swipe up from the bottom of the screen to open the tool tray which allows you to select from one of 5 tools and only 9 colours.

Although the app is free it only comes with one tool – Draw. To use the other tools which are Sketch, Outline, Write and Colour you need to buy them individually or buy them all for a slightly reduced price (around £5 from memory). Initially I thought that was slightly rude but it’s a great model that I’m surprised more tools don’t adopt. One really nice feature is a 20 step undo/redo. Place two fingers on the screen and rotate anti-clockwise to step through recent changes and undo them, rotate clockwise to reinstate them. Simple and effective. You also have access to an erase tool but thats it – a very clean environment that leaves you free to concentrate on your notes rather than how to use the tool. The video below from FiftyThree highlights the key features.

It’s easy to add a new page within a book and to move back to the home screen, select a new book and cary on sketching. Paper has limited but very clever sharing features. You can share a sketch on Tumblr, Facebook and Twittter or send via e-mail. I was surprised by how limited the options seemed to be – no way to save to image folder for example but you can just take a screenshot and share that way.

The reason it’s clever is how the images are shared, take Twitter for example.

By adding the hashtag #MadeWithPaper it’s easy to click and view the thousands of sketches that are being shared on Twitter and hence generating a lot of buzz about the app. Paper is easier to use with a stylus (sorry Steve!) but it helps if you have a bit of talent.

These are two sketches from Shak, one of the founders of DigitalOutbox, who also has some skills…unlike me.

It’s all positive so far but there are some negatives to be aware of. Firstly there are no brush sizes at all so it can feel a bit clumsy and imprecise especially with the colour tool. There’s also no zoom or layer support so when you look at something like SketchBook Pro which costs £2.99 it can seem expensive. Yes – I’ve just criticised a free app for being expensive.

So why is Paper a pick? The simplicity helps you focus on content rather than the application, and the tools that come with Paper feel right. I’ve created a few screen mock ups in Paper and they look so much better than what I’ve managed so far in the other sketch tools. If you’ve got an iPad Paper is well worth trying, especially if you’ve one of those lovely new retina iPad’s. Happy sketching.

Tweetbot for iPad

My pick this week is Tweetbot for iPad and is another entry in the NATC (Not Another Twitter Client) category that I’ve become obsessed with since the first iPhone came out. Tweetbot on the iPhone has been my Twitter client of choice since it came out last year. I like it’s looks, speed but most importantly it’s features are second to none. It was one of the first iPhone clients to support Tweet Marker and I found it far more usable than the official Twitter client. It’s only negative was the lack of iPad support which has now been fixed with this release.

Tweetbot displays a clean view of your timeline, now including inline images

The main difference from the official Twitter for iPad client is that everything can be seen clearly on screen at the same time. No swiping, no confusion, just a clean display of tweets with inline photo’s and excellent gesture support. Swipe on a tweet to show replies or the conversation. Select a tweet and easily quote, retweet etc. Very easy to switch between multiple profiles too – click on the profile top left and switch to another. That’s all well and good in landscape but what about portrait?

Menu's shortened but still displayed in portrait view

The menu’s are shortened to just icons and all the functionality is maintained. Some other notable features in this release include a really good in app browser. Web pages can easily be shown in a clean format via the Readbility/Instapaper switch. Flick the switch and the article is re-rendered in a clean readable format.

A web page displayed via the in app browser
The same page cleaned up by Readability - makes even the Daily Mail readable.

A problem with Twitter is noise. You follow a lot of people and it’s just about manageable but then an event takes place – an Apple launch or a celeb does something naughty and everyone talks about it. Repeatedly. Sharing the same content. It can be annoying but you don’t want to unfollow someone for a one day rant. Tweetbot allows you to mute users, hashtags and also other clients so you have finer control over what you want to see. It’s a great way of hiding spoileriffic content like football or F1 results if you aren’t watching live.

Tweetbot has extensive support for muting people, hashtags and clients

Another way of controlling what you see is to make use of lists. It takes a bit of effort but by creating a list in Twitter (or via Tweetbot) you can then filter tweets from a particular list. You can also subscribe to other public lists so instead of following lots of users you can subscribe to someone else’s public twitter list and then view the tweets from that list. I don’t make use of the subscribe feature enough but Tweetbot allows you to easily switch the timeline to a list that you have created or subscribed too. Very handy during an Apple event for example.

Easily change the timeline to your own or subscribed list

There are lot’s of other features too – notification support (per Twitter account), large photo display with the other screen UI darkened (really makes photo’s pop), the interface can be customised to remove features you don’t use, customise the triple tap to your need, change the display to show larger text or a different date format and lot’s of flexibility around services (URL, image, video, read later, sync and mobilizer) and finally customise your trend results. Quite a list and those settings are all per account so you can tweak Tweetbot to your heart’s content.

Something I have to point out is that Tweetbot is not a universal app. The iPhone app costs £1.99 and the iPad app costs £1.99. I think this is cheap for the functionality that it delivers. If you disagree then stick with the free official Twitter client but please don’t moan and post that this sucks. I can’t believe that people think £1.99 is a lot to pay and that paying for an app once means free upgrades for life and on multiple clients. We’re doomed.

Let’s not end on a negative though. Tweetbot for iPad is a feature rich Twitter client for the iPad that is easy and fun to use. Nothing else comes close and for me it’s a bargain at £1.99. Buy it!

DigitalOutbox Episode 98

DigitalOutbox Episode 98
In this episode the team discuss Nokia Windows Phones, iOS battery woes and why Britain loves it’s data.

Playback
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Shownotes
0:43 – Nokia Windows Phone Revealed
– Lumia 800
– The 800 sports a curved 3.7-inch WVGA ClearBlack AMOLED display, a single-core 1.4GHz processor, and 512MB of RAM. Mobile photographers will find much to like about the 8-megapixel camera with a f/2.2 Carl Zeiss lens, and the 16GB of onboard storage should hold quite a few cat pictures. The specs won’t exactly set anyone’s world on fire, but the design might: like the N9 before it, the Lumia 800 features a stunning unibody design that’s shaped out of a slab of durable polycarbonate material.
– The style-conscious among you will also be glad to know that the Lumia 800 comes in three colors: black, cyan, and magenta. Surprisingly, the Lumia 800 is already on its way to France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK in time for a November launch. Customers in Hong Kong, India, Russia, Singapore and Taiwan will be able to nab one by the end of the year, but domestic Windows Phones fans will have to wait until early 2012.
6:14 – Android passes iOS in total app downloads
– Android commanded 44 percent of overall mobile app downloads compared to 31 percent for iOS.
– According to ABI, Android has much bigger install base compared to iOS, with 2.4 users for every iOS user worldwide. By 2016, that gap is expected to grow to 3:1. But even with the bigger footprint, iOS users still download more apps individually than average Android users by a 2 to 1 ratio.
– Apple is still the No. 1 focus for most developers because of the fact that it’s a better place to monetize apps; Ovum predicts iOS will still generate more in paid download revenue in 2016 with iOS making $2.86 billion compared to $1.5 billion for Android. As I wrote about before, Apple customers are also more interested in downloading a wider variety of apps, which is helpful for developers.
9:23 – Apple admit iOS 5 battery issues
– “A small number of customers have reported lower than expected battery life on iOS 5 devices,” Apple said in a statement to AllThingsD. “We have found a few bugs that are affecting battery life and we will release a software update to address those in a few weeks.”
– Apple didn’t say exactly what the “few bugs” were, but leading candidates right now are iCloud sync and notifications. Apple has just posted a developer beta for iOS 5.0.1, with the following changelog:
– iOS 5.0.1 beta contains improvements and other bug fixes including:
– Fixes bugs affecting battery life
– Adds Multitasking Gestures for original iPad
– Resolves bugs with Documents in the Cloud
– Improves voice recognition for Australian users using dictation
– Contains security improvements
13:21 – Siri does not understand the Scots
– Problems with Scots accent
– Really. So surprised…
17:10 – Mobile britain – all about the data
– Staggeringly, 97% of all the traffic that now travels through our network is data. That’s amazing.
– It’s even more amazing when you know that since June last year and September this year (just 14 months) we’ve seen a 427% increase in data usage on Three for smartphone customers. Downloading apps, streaming movies, getting around town with Google Maps, even checking in on Facebook – it all adds up, and you’re doing it now more than ever.
19:57 – Home data rates are staggering too
– The average home broadband user downloads 17 gigabytes (GB) of data each month, equivalent to streaming 12 hours of high-definition content from the BBC’s iPlayer, as data use has increased sevenfold over the past five years, says a new report.
– At the same time 97% of UK premises – and 66% of the country – can get a voice signal outdoors from each of the mobile networks O2, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone, while 73% of premises and 13% of the country can access 3G data signals, according to research by the communications watchdog Ofcom.
– Internet service providers confirmed that customers’ data demands have increased dramatically as people have begun to adopt video catchup services and “cloud” services such as YouTube, Flickr and Facebook.
– Virgin Media told the Guardian that customers on faster lines use proportionally more data: those on its 10 megabit per second (Mbps) lines use about 19GB a month on average, while those using its 100Mbps lines consume 130GB. As the figures are averages, though, some people using filesharing networks may be downloading considerably more, said a Virgin spokesperson. TalkTalk said the average user downloads 13GB. BT declined to give figures.
22:19 – Netflix to hit UK in early 2012
– Netflix today said it will offer “unlimited TV shows and films streaming instantly over the internet to TVs and computers for one low monthly subscription price”.
– Streaming only, no DVD rentals
– Another step to cutting Sky or Virgin?
– No idea on price or range
– Dropped 800,000 subscribers in latest figures, and despite healthy revenues has said that they will move to net loss with roll out in UK & Ireland
– Shares dropped 37% – ouch
25:46 – SeeSaw goes Bye Bye
– The British streaming television service, SeeSaw, has been closed down.
– The website had been online less than two years, offering content from BBC Worldwide, Channel 4, Channel Five and several production companies.
– A group of investors led by Criterion Capital Partners took a majority stake in the business in July. CCP also owns the social network Bebo. Experts said the business was squeezed out by bigger players in the online video market.
– SeeSaw was created by the media services company, Arqiva, in February 2010. It used assets from the aborted catch-up TV platform, Project Kangeroo, which had been rejected by the UK’s competition regulator.
– It offered a range of free-to-watch programmes supported by advertising, with an optional fee to turn the adverts off. It also had premium pay-to-watch shows.
26:58 – BT given 14 days to block Newzbin 2
– BT has been given 14 days to block access to a website accused of promoting illegal filesharing “on a grand scale” by Hollywood studios, in the first high court ruling of its kind under UK copyright law.
– Wednesday’s court order also allows for the blocking of any other IP or internet address that the operators of the Newzbin2 site might look to use to continue to offer copyrighted content to users.
– The judge said that limiting the blocking order to the Newzbin2 site would be “too easily circumvented to be effective” because the site’s owners have already made available software that could allow users to get around a BT block.
– He backed the studios’ proposal that BT should also move to block “any other IP address or URL whose sole or predominant purpose is to enable or facilitate access to the Newzbin[2] website”.
– “Furthermore, I do not consider that the studios should be obliged to return to court for an order in respect of every single IP address or URL that the operators of Newzbin2 may use,” he added.
– The court said BT must foot the bill for the cost of implementing the web block on Newzbin2. BT, which argued that the creative industries should pay, has estimated the cost to be about £5,000 and £100 for each subsequent notification.
– App launched by Newzbin to get around the block
30:34 – Borrow Kindle books…if your a prime user…and live in the US
– The new Lending Library turns your Kindle into a sort of virtual library, with currently 5,000 titles you can borrow from Amazon, including 100 New York Times bestsellers. You can borrow one book a month by going to the “Kindle Owners’ Lending Library” in the Kindle Store on your Kindle device. Books with the Prime icon can be borrowed for free for the month (as long as you’re a Prime member). Correction: There are no due dates, but you can only have one book out at a time.
– Only works with Kindle devices – not Kindle software
– So prime in the US gives you lending and free streaming as well as the free day shipping
– UK is free next day shipping only – will that change when the content dels are in place
33:19 – HP Reverses
– Will retain PC division
– Now that the Personal Systems Group is staying part of HP, the board of directors feels that it can “drive profitable growth” and assist other parts of HP’s business.
– Web OS seemingly still for the chop – tablets will use Windows 8
– But they are still trying to maintain developer interest by offering cheap tablets to them…
34:57 – Google+ Updates
– Google+ now works for Google App users – finally
– Launches Whats Hot
– Exposing popular posts, not just from your circles
– Ripples
– Visualise how a story was shared
– Experimental but nice
– Creative Kit
– Add filters, effects, text to your images with ease
– After a release that the tech community loved – and praised fairly universally – pretty sure that takeup is pretty inconsequential… Can it survive? Not a daily visit on my we travels any more.
– Another Bing?
38:15 – Google TV Updates
– It’s coming to UK soon so worth mentioning this update
– Reworked UI – proper 10 foot interface
– New apps
– Android Marketplace
– Doesn’t replace Sky or Virgin, but to be used alongside those devices
41:01 – Google Reader Updates
– Removed sharing
– Everything through Google+
– Can’t follow others
– New design shows more white, shows less er page, is harder to understand
– iOS Gmail app released
– Basically a wrapper around a web app
– Attachments and notifications only real difference
– Except notifications are broke
– Only supports one gmail account
– An hour after release they pull the app and apologise
– Google figure out a way to get around the iOS limitation of 100 beta testers
– Seriously though – why do this?
48:24 – Facebook Stats
– Ahead of new trusted Friends feature, Faceook unleashed some pretty amazing stats
– every day, “only .06%” of Facebook’s 1 billion logins are compromised. Or, to put it another way, 600,000 logins per day are compromised.
– Less than 4% of the content shared on Facebook is spam (vs. 89.1% of email is spam)
– Less than 5% of Facebook users experience spam on any given day
– 50% of Facebook’s 750+ million users login to Facebook every day (wait, aren’t we up to 800 million now? Must be an old infographic).
– The average user has 130 friends
– People spend over 700 billion minutes on the site per month
52:41 – Batman and other games
– Batman
– Another epic and deeply atmospheric chapter. Powerful end to story as well.
– Clever sandbox environment/story as well.
– Finishing main story line represents under 50% of game completion with challenge maps, side missions and riddlers tropies/riddles making up remainder.
– Serious no no… save game issues still… Extremely easy to corrupt a save file and then all progress lost. Only option to start again. Happened to me at 25% and a search around the internet turned up plenty more pissed off people. Also, issue with game failing to recognise downloaded content and then failing to load. Again, big no no.
– Battlefield
– Uncharted 3
– GTA V trailer – return to San Andreas
– MW3 just around the corner
– Threats from MS they will ban players playing early… even if you bought a legit copy, legitimately… Like to see the fallout from that one?

Picks
Chris
Jetpack Joyride
– Great game for iOS devices
– Using different weapons try and fly for as long as possible
– Good graphics and sound
Ian
idonethis
– Mails you once a day, you reply with events you’ve done that day
– Email only – can’t edit via website
– Calendar viewable online or shared via secret url into Google Calendar or iCal
– Nice way of tracking events – can be exported from site

DigitalOutbox Episode 86

DigitalOutbox Episode 86
In this episode the team discuss Ryan Giggs suing Twitter, sleazy Facebook, Apple Malware and Sony woes.

Playback
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Shownotes
2:30 – Footballer Sues Twitter
– A footballer has launched legal action against Twitter after a number of the microblogging site’s users purported to reveal the name of the player who allegedly had an affair with model Imogen Thomas.
– The footballer’s legal team began the legal action at the high court in London on Wednesday, in what is thought to be the first action against the US social media firm and its users.
– The lawsuit lists the defendants as “Twitter Inc and persons unknown”. The latter are described as those “responsible for the publication of information on the Twitter accounts” in the court document, according to reports.
– Earlier this month, an unknown person or individuals published the names of various people who had allegedly taken out gagging orders to conceal sexual indiscretions on a Twitter account. The account rapidly attracted more than 100,000 followers.
– Twitter declined to comment.
– The lord chief justice, Lord Judge, on Friday said Twitter and its users were totally out of control when it comes to privacy injunctions and court orders.
– Thousands tweet player name on Friday and Saturday – everyone knows who it is
– Sunday Herald publishes a picture of player with his eye’s blacked out – http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/may/22/scottish-newspaper-identifies-injuction-footballer
– They don’t publish story online – only in the actual paper
– “Today we identify the footballer whose name has been linked to a court superinjunction by thousands of postings on Twitter. Why? Because we believe it is unsustainable that the law can be used to prevent newspapers from publishing information that readers can access on the internet at the click of a mouse.
– “Because we believe it unfair that the law can not only be used to prevent the publication of information which may be in the public interest but also to prevent any mention of such a court order. The so-called superinjunction holds no legal force in Scotland where a separate court order is needed. We should point out immediately that we are not accusing the footballer of any misdeed. Whether the allegations against him are true or not has no relevance to this debate.”
– MP eventually reveals Gigg’s name in the House of Commons
8:46 – Patent Troll targets iOS Developers
– a Texas-based company called Lodsys said it has four patents relating to in-app purchases, interactive online ads, online help and subscription renewals.
– Instead of suing Apple or any of the big companies like EA, it’s chasing small indie developers
– One claim was served on Friday by hand on James Thomson, a Glasgow-based developer who wrote the apps PCalc and DragThing. Another who received the couriered legal package was Matt Braun, a developer based in Toledo, Ohio, author of the best-selling iPhone kids game MASH who runs a mobile app development company, Magnate Interactive. Patrick McCarron of MobileAge, based in Chicago, has also received a demand.
– Developers have raised this with Apple legal hoping for some assistance – they are leveraging tools and API’s delivered by Apple
– May 23rd – Apple respond to developers and Lodsys – we have licenced your patent, our app developers aren’t in violation – do one you trolls
13:26 – Apple Malware
– A fake security program for Apple computers called MACDefender has racked up a significant number of victims.
– Hundreds of people who installed the software have turned to Apple’s forums for help to remove it.
– The program’s tactic of peppering screens with pornographic pictures has made many keen to get rid of it.
– MACDefender seems to have been successful because of the work its creators did to make it appear high up in search results.
– Has to be downloaded and then users supply username and password to install
– Note – the vast majority of malware that Sophos and other security firms see is aimed at Windows users. About 100,000 novel malicious programs for Windows are detected every day, he said.
– Joel Esler of the Sourcefire Vulnerability Research Team, who hasanalysed the attack, told the Guardian that when users visit a page with an infected ad or link, the download – called “mac-antivirus.zip” – is started automatically by Javascript. Because Apple’s Safari defaults to a setting of “open files after download”, the program – which contains an application package wrapped in a zip archive – is first unzipped and then triggers the installer program.
Users are then presented with a dialog asking for their administrator name and password so the installation can proceed. If they do, the program installs itself in the /Applications folder and adds itself to the user’s login items, and puts a menu item in the top right of the menu.
– Apple eventually issues a support doc – http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4650
– Update to become available for OS X which will delete all instances of the malware and also warn against future downloads
– New version of malware released – doesn’t need admin password – http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/mac-malware-authors-release-a-new-more-dangerous-version/3385?tag=mantle_skin;content
– Nothing to fear at the moment for Apple users but Apple can’t be complacent, which I don’t think they are being
19:50 – iPad Explosion
20:35 – Facebook Apps Leak User Information
– Symantec said that, until recently, Facebook apps have inadvertently been leaking user data to third-party developers. In response, Facebook said the problem has been fixed and that no unauthorized Facebook data was shared with third parties.
– In a blog post, Symantec’s Nishant Doshi said that third-parties, mostly advertisers, have “accidentally” had access to Facebook user information like profiles, photographs, and chat.
– “Fortunately, these third-parties may not have realized their ability to access this information,” Doshi wrote. “[But] we estimate that as of April 2011, close to 100,000 applications were enabling this leakage. We estimate that over the years, hundreds of thousands of applications may have inadvertently leaked millions of access tokens to third parties.”
– Facebook said it worked with Symantec to rectify the issue, but took issue with how it characterized the situation.
– “We’ve conducted a thorough investigation which revealed no evidence of this issue resulting in a user’s private information being shared with unauthorized third parties,” Facebook said in a statement. “In addition, this report ignores the contractual obligations of advertisers and developers which prohibit them from obtaining or sharing user information in a way that violates our policies.”
– At issue is the permissions-based app menu to which users must agree when installing an app. Facebook has been working to transition from a legacy Facebook authentication system and HTTP to the more secure OAuth 2.0. In the wake of the Symantec investigation, Facebook said Tuesday that it will require all sites and apps to migrate to OAuth 2.0 and obtain an SSL certificate by October 1.
22:57 – Facebook exposed in Google smear campaign
– It has been revealed that Facebook embarked on a smear campaign against rival Google.
– The social network has admitted that it hired a PR firm to plant anti-Google stories related to user privacy.
– The details came to light when one blogger approached by PR firm Burson-Marsteller published the e-mail exchange. Burson had been touting stories on behalf of an unnamed client about the Google service Social Circle. Blogger Chris Soghain did not want to pursue the story and later released the e-mails he had exchanged with Burson.
– When the e-mails were published there was a mass of rumours about who the client could be, with Microsoft and Apple in the frame.
– It was down to US-based news website, the Daily Beast to uncover that the client was in fact Facebook.
– Facebook has confirmed that it used Burson-Marsteller to expose things which Google was doing that “raised privacy concerns”. Burson told Mr Soghain, among others, that “the American people must be made aware of the now immediate intrusions into their deeply personal lives Google is cataloguing and broadcasting every minute of every day – without their permission.”
– A Facebook spokesman later told the Daily Beast that it resented Google’s attempts to use Facebook data in its own social networking service.
27:56 – Windows Phone 7.1
– 500 new features
– Says MS: “The smartphone experience can be complicated by a sea of disconnected apps and accounts.”
– Its solution: integrate as much as possible. But not too far – it doesn’t want to dissuage developers from writing software for the platform, of course. But don’t think ‘apps’ so much as ‘plug-ins’ as MS “sees the promise of apps in how they can be integrated directly into the core experiences of the phone”.
– This approach will be aided by Mango’s improved multitasking and the ability to present more live information in WinPho’s main-screen tiles.
– Expect too SMS, Facebook and IM chats to be merged into a single thread, and a single inbox for all your email accounts. MS promised “deeper social network integration” and the ability to group contacts into a single tile. Built in Facebook and Twitter
– The browser will be based around IE 9. Fast – on a speed reading test it was way faster than anything else demo’d
– Search far more powerful than seen before – smarter – best demo yet seen on a mobile deice?
– Free update this autumn – Nokia phone this year?
– Very quickly MS have caught up with features on iOS and Android…but they have neither market or mind share
31:21 – LTE UK Trial
– BT & Everything Everywhere staging LTE trial in Cornwall, England’s most southerly county, which will last from the 1st of September through to the end of December.
– Connection speeds could scale as high as 40Mbps, though the typical rate is expected to be closer to 10Mbps.
– Volunteers are now being sought to participate in the trial, though they have to reside (or be willing to move, we presume) in the pretty tiny 4G coverage area near Newquay
33:27 – Mobile Money arrives in the UK
– The mobile wallet has arrived in Britain, in the form of a Samsung phone and a joint venture between Barclaycard and Orange.
– UK is years behind many Asian and African countries
– On the Orange Barclaycard phones you will only be able to spend a maximum of £15 a time, so you’re unlikely to decide you can afford to leave your credit cards behind when you leave home in the morning.
– But other operators will follow Orange, and once NFC becomes a standard feature of new phones, it’s possible that mobile payments will become commonplace too.
36:43 – Google Wallet
– Google Wallet, an app that will make your phone your wallet. You’ll be able to tap, pay and save using your phone and near field communication (NFC). We’re field testing Google Wallet now and plan to release it soon.
– Because Google Wallet is a mobile app, it will do more than a regular wallet ever could. You’ll be able to store your credit cards, offers, loyalty cards and gift cards, but without the bulk. When you tap to pay, your phone will also automatically redeem offers and earn loyalty points for you. Someday, even things like boarding passes, tickets, ID and keys could be stored in Google Wallet.
– Working with 15 major partners
– With Google Wallet, we’re building an open commerce ecosystem, and we’re planning to develop APIs that will enable integration with numerous partners. In the beginning, Google Wallet will be compatible with Nexus S 4G by Google, available on Sprint. Over time, we plan on expanding support to more phones.
41:33 – YouTube Turns 6
– YouTube says global daily views have gone up 50 percent in thepast 12 months, which means they currently handle a whopping 3 billion views per day.
– Also worth noting: YouTube says it has exceeded over 48 hours of video uploaded to the site every single minute (which, they add, represents a 100 percent increase year over year).
42:45 – Sony gets PSN back online
– Download new firmware
– Reset password on signing in
– Gaming, Home, Video rental playpack and Qriocity back online
– Store will come later with…
– Welcome back pack
– All existing PlayStation Network members will be able to access the following from PlayStation Store*:
Two PS3 games from the following list:
LittleBigPlanet
Infamous*
Wipeout HD/Fury
Ratchet and Clank: Quest for Booty
Dead Nation*
– For those with PSP accounts, you will also be eligible to download two PSP games from the following list:
LittleBigPlanet PSP
ModNation PSP
Pursuit Force
Killzone Liberation*
– 30 days free PlayStation Plus membership for non PS Plus subscribers*
– Existing PlayStation Plus subscribers will be given 60 days free subscription.
– For existing Music Unlimited subscribers, you will be given 30 days free subscription.
– We are working on a Welcome Back offer in PlayStation Home and will share that when it is confirmed.
– EU Identity Theft Protection Programme
– http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2011/05/17/details-of-snee-scees-identity-theft-protection-programme/
– That said, we are pleased to advise that Affinion International Limited, a leader in identity protection products in Europe, will be offering a comprehensive service that covers a significant proportion of PSN users free of charge for the first 12 months.
Affinion International Limited will be offering the following identity theft protection service and insurance through their fraud protect programme for the UK, France, Spain, Italy and Germany.
The fraud protect proposition cover three key areas:*
Personal Information protection
Monitoring and Alerting Service
Personal Information Protection Software
Help / Assistance and guidance
Dedicated helpline
Victim of Fraud support
Financial Protection
Insurance that covers the expenses incurred in identity restoration following identity fraud
Card Monitoring and Alerting Service
– Just when you thought it was safe
– http://kotaku.com/5803070/sony-playstation-network-password-reset-page-exploited-customer-accounts-potentially-compromised
– Sony’s PlayStation Network password reset system-the one just put in place after the PSN hack-has been compromised, allowing hackers to change a PSN password if they know your email and date of birth. Exactly the sort of information that was released in the original hack.
– Sony has taken the password reset system offline.
– Fixed within 24 hours
– If you were affected you would receive an e-mail about the reset
– Announce massive loss too
– In the lead-up to its fiscal year 2010 earnings report this Thursday, Sony today released a revised forecast — forewarning a $3.2 billion loss (yowzah!) — for the twelve months ending March 31, 2011. Having occurred in late April, the PlayStation Network attack and subsequent data theft and outage fall outside of that period, but the company nonetheless addressed “the impact” of the event during an investors call today, “since there have been so many media inquiries about this incident.”
49:30 – Mobile Minecraft
– Hit game Minecraft is being developed for iOS and Android
– First platform will be Android, specifically Sony Ericsson’s PlayStation-certified Xperia Play.
– Xperia Play version will feature customized controls that utilize the phone’s PlayStation-styled slide-out buttons.
– Strange to launch on brand new platform against all the millions of other Android phones not to mention iOS
51:06 – BBC News hits Android
– BBC News App finally available for Android
– 6-8 months on from iOS release
– Ability to share a story via email, SMS or social networks
– If your phone is running Android 2.2 or higher, BBC News can also be live-streamed using Flash.
51:58 – Dell make thinnest 15 inch laptop
– Noted in passing: advert for the Dell XPS-15, containing the phrase
Finally, the power you crave in the thinnest 15″ PC on the planet*.
– Wow, the thinnest? But wait, what’s the asterisk?
– Small print time: “Based on Dell internal analysis as at February 2011. Based on a thickness comparison (front and rear measurements) of other 15″ laptop PCs manufactured by HP, Acer, Toshiba, Asus, Lenovo, Samsung, Sony, MSI. No comparison made with Apple or other manufacturers not listed.”

Picks
Henry
Splashtop Remote
– Control your pc or mac from your iPad
– Fast and secure
Ian
Fantastical
– Easy to use Mac calendar
– Runs from your task bar
– Add events easily via natural language

DigitalOutbox Episode 84

DigitalOutbox Episode 84
In this episode the team discuss Sony Fail, Apple Fail, Tom Tom Fail and Amazon Fail. Fail.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
2:30 – Sony Hacked
– Down since Wednesday evening – 5 days and counting
– Initially no word on what is causing this issue
– Eventually admitted it was an external intrusion and because of it Sony themselves had closed the network down – hack on the PS Network/Qriocity
– Second update on Sunday morning – having to rebuild network and increase security
– Monday headlines in Wall Street Journal – Sony Shuts Down PlayStation Network Indefinitely
– http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/04/25/22402/
– Then it got a whole load worse
– http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2011/04/26/psnqriocity-service-update/
– Due to the hack Sony have:
– 1) Temporarily turned off PlayStation Network and Qriocity services;
2) Engaged an outside, recognized security firm to conduct a full and complete investigation into what happened; and
3) Quickly taken steps to enhance security and strengthen our network infrastructure by re-building our system to provide you with greater protection of your personal information.
– Although we are still investigating the details of this incident, we believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following information that you provided: name, address (city, state/province, zip or postal code), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity passwords and login, and handle/PSN online ID. It is also possible that your profile data, including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip), and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may have been obtained. If you have authorized a sub-account for your dependent, the same data with respect to your dependent may have been obtained. While there is no evidence that credit card data was taken at this time, we cannot rule out the possibility. If you have provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity, to be on the safe side we are advising you that your credit card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may also have been obtained.
– Biggest ID theft yet? 71 million users worldwide, around 3 million in the UK
– What started off as embarrassing to the Sony brand and gaming network has taken a very serious and sinister turn
– But never mind – Sony hope to have the network back up and running in a week
– Further update
– http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2011/04/28/playstation-network-and-qriocity-outage-faq/
– Credit card data was encrypted
– They didn’t store the CVC (three digit number) at all
– Search your email for mail from “DoNotReply@ac.playstation.net”, subject “Wallet Funding”, to find which credit cards you’ve used on PSN. Those emails will show the first 4 and last 4 digits of any card you’ve used for PSN purchases.
– Passwords were in cleartext though – doh!!!!!!!!! Update – One other point to clarify is from this weekend’s press conference. While the passwords that were stored were not “encrypted,” they were transformed using a cryptographic hash function. There is a difference between these two types of security measures which is why we said the passwords had not been encrypted. But I want to be very clear that the passwords were not stored in our database in cleartext form. For a description of the difference between encryption and hashing, follow this link.

– Hacker forums are spreading news that the hackers have 2.2 million credit card details alongside names and addresses – http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/hackers-claim-to-have-playstation-users-card-data/
– Also claim that the hackers want to sell the database for upwards of $100,000 and also offered it back to Sony
– True or false? Sony deny it.
– Geohot’s thoughts – http://geohotgotsued.blogspot.com/2011/04/recent-news.html
– Sony execs probably haughtily chuckled at the idea of threat modeling. Traditionally the trust boundary for a web service exists between the server and the client. But Sony believes they own the client too, so if they just put a trust boundary between the consumer and the client(can’t trust those pesky consumers), everything is good. Since everyone knows the PS3 is unhackable, why waste money adding pointless security between the client and the server? This arrogance undermines a basic security principle, never trust the client. It’s the same reason MW2 was covered in cheaters, Activision even admitted to the mistake of trusting Sony’s client. Sony needs to accept that they no longer own and control the PS3 when they sell it to you. Notice it’s only PSN that gave away all your personal data, not Xbox Live when the 360 was hacked, not iTunes when the iPhone was jailbroken, and not GMail when Android was rooted. Because other companies aren’t crazy.
– http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2011/05/01/some-playstation-network-and-qriocity-services-to-be-available-this-week/
– Latest update – some services to resume this week, full service – this month
– Added automated software monitoring and configuration management to help defend against new attacks
– Enhanced levels of data protection and encryption
– Enhanced ability to detect software intrusions within the network, unauthorized access and unusual activity patterns
– Implementation of additional firewalls
– Welcome back program
– Each territory will be offering selected PlayStation entertainment content for free download. Specific details of this content will be announced in each region soon.
– All existing PlayStation Network customers will be provided with 30 days free membership in the PlayStation Plus premium service. Current members of PlayStation Plus will receive 30 days free service.
– Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity subscribers (in countries where the service is available) will receive 30 days free service.
– PlayStation boss Kaz Hirai said that up to ten million customer’s account details could have been compromised
– Worse – there was an earlier breech
– http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2011/may/03/sony-data-breach-online-entertainment
– The crisis at Sony deepened on Tuesday as it admitted that an extra 25m customers who played games on its Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) PC games network have had their personal details stolen – and that they were taken before the theft of 77m peoples’ details on the PlayStation Network (PSN).
The electronics giant said the names, addresses, emails, birth dates, phone numbers and other information from PC games customers were stolen from its servers as well as an “outdated database” from 2007 which contained details of around 23,400 people outside the US. That includes 10,700 direct debit records for customers in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain, Sony said.
The dataset was stolen on 16 and 17 April, before the PSN break-in, which occurred from 17 to 19 April. Sony said that it had not previously thought that the data was copied by the hackers who broke into its systems.
– Lost faith in Sony.
– Upside of a poor console is that I hadn’t used my newer credit card with them – cc details not lost – achievement unlocked
13:02 – Sony Android Tablets
– The S1, sports a 9.4-inch screen. The other is the S2; it bears a novel dual-screen design. The device’s two 5.5-inch screens can be used separately or together; they can also be folded onto one another to create a compact and highly portable package.
– Both tablets are WiFi and 3G/4G compatible and integrate with PlayStation Suite, Sony’s new Android-friendly platform that allows users to download and play PlayStation games.
Sony says the S1 in particular “uses infrared technology and works as a universal remote control for a variety of AV devices … turning on TVs, changing the channel and adjusting the volume.” The tablets can also take advantage of DLNA functionality to “project” content to other, larger screens and speakers.
– Most notable that it’s not Windows
14:12 – iPhone Privacy Fears
– Security researchers have discovered that Apple’s iPhone keeps track of where you go – and saves every detail of it to a secret file on the device which is then copied to the owner’s computer when the two are synchronised.
– The file contains the latitude and longitude of the phone’s recorded coordinates along with a timestamp, meaning that anyone who stole the phone or the computer could discover details about the owner’s movements using a simple program.
– For some phones, there could be almost a year’s worth of data stored, as the recording of data seems to have started with Apple’s iOS 4 update to the phone’s operating system, released in June 2010
– To view the data yourself – http://petewarden.github.com/iPhoneTracker/
– Nice Mac app that visualises your data
– Ian – don’t see the issue really although it would have been good to:
– Know about it
– Switch it off if I want to
– Saying that – vis is cool, love it to be honest and I blog, RunKeeper, Flickr and Fitbit anyway – it’s mostly all out there allready
– Similar data captured on Android
– http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703983704576277101723453610.html?mod=WSJ_Tech_LEADSecond
– Similar data captured and sent to Google on Android devices
– One big difference – it’s an opt in so if you feel uncomfortable switch it off
– That’s the right way to do it
– Good technical explanation of what is being captured and why – http://alexlevinson.wordpress.com/2011/04/23/3-new-thoughts-on-mobile-location/
– Data is being sent to Apple but only on radio device locations, not where you have been
– Apple eventually responds officially – http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/04/27location_qa.html
– Treating this seriously – Jobs, Phil Schiller and Scott Forstall do interviews – http://mobilized.allthingsd.com/20110427/qa-jobs-and-apple-execs-on-tracking-down-the-facts-about-iphones-and-location/
– Also admit bugs and and changes to come
– Sometime in the next few weeks Apple will release a free iOS software update that:
– reduces the size of the crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower database cached on the iPhone,
– ceases backing up this cache, and
– deletes this cache entirely when Location Services is turned off.
– In the next major iOS software release the cache will also be encrypted on the iPhone.
– Out today – iOS 4.3.3 improves the way iPhones and iPads handle the location tracking database stored on-device by making is smaller and encrypted. The location database will be no longer backed up to iTunes and it will be deleted entirely when Location Services are turned off.
23:54 – The White iPhone
– Available on April 28th
– Same price as black iPhone – same features, nothings changed, well almost – 0.2mm thicker (maybe) – http://www.macrumors.com/2011/04/28/white-iphone-4-slightly-thicker-than-black-iphone-4/
– 9 months after black iPhone
– “It was challenging,” Apple senior vice president Phil Schiller said during a joint interview with CEO Steve Jobs on Wednesday. “It’s not as simple as making something white. There’s a lot more that goes into both the material science of it–how it holds up over time…but also in how it all works with the sensors.”
Schiller said that it turned out there were a lot of unexpected interactions between the color of the device and various internal components. Also, like fair-skinned humans, white iPhones need a little more UV protection from the sun.
– Stopgap as iPhone 5 is in the Autumn this year?
25:31 – New iMacs
– Sandy bridge
– 2 thunderbolt ports on 27”
– Facetime HD – 720p camera in widescreen
– New AMD graphics up to 2GB of ram
– Can drive 2 external displays (27” only) so you could have 3 screens
– Up to 16gb of RAM
– Powerful machines…at a powerful price
30:49 – Digital Magazine Tipping Point
– Time Inc., the country’s largest magazine publisher, has reached a deal with Apple Inc. to make all its iPad editions free for print subscribers, marking a break in the impasse between publishers and Apple and lending support to Time’s contention that it’s business-as-usual after the ouster of its chief executive.
– Starting Monday, subscribers to Sports Illustrated, Time and Fortune magazines will be able to access the iPad editions via the apps, which will be able to authenticate them as subscribers. Time Inc.’s People magazine already had such an arrangement, but readers of most publications have had to pay separately for the iPad version regardless of their subscriber status.
32:14 – Push Pop Press
– Developed by former Apple employees Mike Matas and Kimon Tsinteris, Push Pop Press will be a publishing platform for authors, publishers and artists to turn their books into interactive iPad or iPhone apps — no programming skills required.
– First book is Our Choice from Al Gore – £2.99
– Gore approached them in late 2009 – The result of the project was Push Pop Press, a full-on publishing platform that the pair have been developing for about a year-and-a-half.
– Gore’s book, which goes live in the App Store on Thursday morning, is in part a demonstration of the capabilities of Push Pop Press.
– Much better take on an interactive book/magazine than Wired for example
– Navigation is very easy – you know where you are at all times
– Photo’s are geotagged so you can see where they were taken – extra context
– Very fast despite all the animations – impressive – best attempt so far at adigital magazine that suits a tablet format
35:26 – Spotify Updates
– The European music service is rolling out new versions of its desktop and mobile apps today, which will allow all users (even those pesky ad-supported freeloaders) to sync Spotify desktop tracks with mobile devices, be they iPods, iPhones or Androids.
– Spotify intends to compete directly with iTunes, Spotify is also introducing its own music store, or “download service”, in which users can buy a range of MP3 “bundles” at 10 songs for roughly 8 pounds. Or 100 songs for 50 pounds. (Roughly the equivalent of $13 and $82, respectively.)
– So, not only will Spotify be offering its more than 10 million registered users a music store, it wants its music player to become the default mobile app on its listeners’ devices. To encourage this adoption, Spotify has enabled desktop-to-mobile sync-ing over WiFi. (Something iTunes, cough, doesn’t offer.)
37:17 – Tom Tom sells your data
– The company confessed that they’d been giving data to Dutch police who used it to target drivers.
– TomTom chief executive Harold Goddijn said the company sold the anonymous data believing it would be used to improve safety or relieve traffic bottlenecks.
– “We never foresaw this kind of use and many of our clients are not happy about it.”
– “We make this information available to local governments and authorities. It helps them to better understand where congestion takes place, where to build new roads and how to make roads safer.
– “We are now aware that the police have used traffic information that you have helped to create to place speed cameras at dangerous locations where the average speed is higher than the legally allowed speed limit. We are aware a lot of our customers do not like the idea and we will look at if we should allow this type of usage.”
– In an update today TomTom CEO Harold Goodijn stresses that the tracking of its devices is voluntary and that customers can choose not to allow it. He also says the data is provided anonymously, and is valuable information the company uses to improve the guidance of its devices, by identifying problem areas and routing customers around them.
39:11 – Amazon Cloud Outage
– EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) had a bumpy few days
– Problems took down Foursquare, Quora, Redit and many others
– Amazon was fairly quiet during this outage
– Can you really blame amazon? What’s the fallback for these services?
– Highights need for redundancy – http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2011/04/the-aws-outage-the-clouds-shining-moment.html
– Also shows everything isn’t right for the cloud – https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?threadID=65649&tstart=0
– Life of our patients is at stake – I am desperately asking you to contact
– We are a monitoring company and are monitoring hundreds of cardiac patients at home.
We were unable to see their ECG signals since 21st of April
– Not restored. Not heard from Amazon
People out there – please take a look at our volumes!
This not just some social network website issue, but a serious threat to peoples lives!
– Don’t be that guy – great post from SmugMug on how they survived the outage – http://don.blogs.smugmug.com/2011/04/24/how-smugmug-survived-the-amazonpocalypse/
– Amazon eventually post long explanation – http://aws.amazon.com/message/65648/
– Make commitment to improve comms, speed up recovery and make it easier to use multiple availability zones
44:24 – DropBox Growth and Security Issues
– 25 million users
– 200 million files are saved daily to the service
– However, concerns are growing around Dropbox security – http://www.tuaw.com/2011/04/19/dropbox-under-fire-for-security-concerns/
– Recently changed T&C’s to say that they will hand over your data to US government if asked, removing Dropbox encryption before doing so
– http://dereknewton.com/2011/04/dropbox-authentication-static-host-ids/
– config.db file (stores Dropbox client and security details) is portable, not tied to the system and so could be taken and used on another computer
– if used on another compute it would sync that persons Dropbox folder without notifying original user or prompting for any passwords or usernames
– So many app’s have built in Dropbox syncing as an option so hard to move away if your concerned
– Box.net is an alternative although I’ve no idea if it works in the same way
– Wuala from Lacie is another alternative – http://www.wuala.com/
50:24 – 30% of Youtube videos now in WebM
– Google have announced that all new video’s uploaded to YouTube are being transcoded to WebM
– They’ve also transitioned 30% of it’s whole library to WebM
– Sounds low but that 30% account for 99% of the views on YouTube
– WebM was the open source video format that Google has backed
– Bit confusing – if it’s open source why have Google just announced a WebM community cross-licence initiative – http://blog.webmproject.org/2011/04/introducing-webm-community-cross.html
– Is this to protect future users from patent threat?
53:05 – Google Docs and Talk Android Apps
– With this new app it’s easy to filter and search for your content across any Google account, then jump straight into editing docs using the online mobile editors.
– The app also allows you to easily share items with contacts on your phone, right from within the app
– The Docs app also allows you to upload content from your phone and open documents directly from Gmail. You can also add a widget to your home screen for easy access to three core tasks: jumping to your starred documents, taking a photo to upload, or creating a new document with one tap
– Also does OCR – take a photo with text on it and it will try and convert to editable text
– Doesn’t work with handwriting or some fonts but Google expects it to get better over time
56:07 – Delicious Acquired
– Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, the founders of YouTube, have acquired the Delicious bookmarking service from Yahoo for an undisclosed price and added it to their new internet company Avos.
– aim is to “continue to provide the same great service users love and make the site even easier and more fun to save, share and discover the web’s ‘tastiest’ content.”
– Whats next – who knows
58:01 – Twitter break Osama Death
– News of Obama addressing the nation
– Keith Urban, ex bush staffer breaks the news
– Retweeted thousands of times
– Finally confirmed
– Turns out the attack was tweeted by @ReallyVirtual
1:03:16 – Nintendo admit disappointing 3DS sales
– Sold 3.6 million in March but had predicted 4 million…and probably wanted a whole load more so they could boast on it’s success
– CEO Satoru Iwata – The value of 3D images without the need for special glasses is hard to be understood through the existing media. However, we have found that people cannot feel it just by trying out a device, rather, some might even misestimate it when experiencing the images in an improper fashion.
– It is now clear that the combination of these new features is not necessarily easy-to-understand by just saying one word to those without experience… We have found that not all Nintendo 3DS users enjoy this software. There seems to be more than a few consumers who have Nintendo 3DS hardware but don’t know about this software and possibly haven’t had a chance to get interested in it.
– Mobile phones eating into Nintendo’s core market
1:05:47 – Darren Gibson quits twitter after 2 hours
– First Coleen Rooney joins twitter and gets abused
– Then Wayne Rooney joins and starts to defend her – gets 200,000 followers in 2 days
– Cue Darren Gibson joining twitter…before shutting the account down – why?
– @dgibbo28 your performance on saturday was one of the worst I’ve ever seen of any utd player. scared of the ball much?’
@dgibbo28 hasn’t tweeted yet. Seems somewhat fitting after the countless anonymous performances we’ve seen from the ‘footballer’
@dgibbo28 my mate thought you were about 33 years old in the heart of midfield! Movement like pirlo!!
@dgibbo28 team do all hard work keeping possession then u hit row Z every fuckin time!!
@dgibbo28 the biggest compliment i can give you is that you are better than Carrick
– Bless

Picks
Chris
Portal 2 Free DLC
– DLC – new test chambers for players, leaderboards, challenge mode for single and multiplayer modes, and more.
– Free on steam and as it will be free on PS3, for first time it will be free on 360 too
Ian
Planetary
– Visual music player for the ipad
– lovely – artists are stars, albums are planets, tracks are moons
– very nice way of browsing music collection
Terra
– browser with tabs for ipad
– nice app – fast
– incognito mode and can appear as ie7, firefox etx
– more features than safari

DigitalOutbox Episode 81

DigitalOutbox Episode 81
In this episode the team discuss the iPad 2 Launch, Samsung and RIM Tablets and the Amazon Appstore.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
0:48 – iPad 2 UK Launch
– This time round, the basic, Wi-Fi only model with 16GB of storage will retail for £399, down from £429.
– The 32GB version will cost £479, the 64GB £559. Chuck in 3G connectivity and GPS, and you’ll pay an extra £100, as before.
– Dollar has weakened against pound in last 12 months though so Apple make more from this price point in the UK
– Massive queues in the UK – 600 at Glasgow store yesterday
– Very busy today – still selling iPad’s, only the red and orange cover out of stock
6:30 – Samsungs Revised Galaxy Tab 10.1 and 8.9
– reworked Galaxy Tab rocking a slightly larger touchscreen over the iPad 2, higher resolution, a 1GHz dual core processor and lighter 595g weight compared with the 601g of the iPad 2 Wi-Fi. But the most important number of all is its price. Unlike Samsung’s overpriced predecessor, the 16 GB Wi-Fi Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 will cost exactly the same as the iPad 2 Wi-Fi 16 GB: $499.
– this thinner, redesigned model reportedly felt much better in all respects, it’s still missing one key number, and that is the hoard of software Apple offers for the iPad 2, more than 60,000 apps specifically created for the platform. But that impressive number also includes the fart apps, too. Even so, Apple has a huge head start.
– Meanwhile, Samsung introduced another contender it calls the Galaxy Tab 8.9, a little more than an inch smaller than its big brother. It includes the same 1GHz dual-core processor, and looks just about the same as the 10.1-inch model, as you’ll see in the gallery below.
– Both of Samsung’s new tabs beat the iPad 2 easily in the camera spec department, with a 3-megapixel rear camera and a 2-megapixel up front, both shooting 1080p video. In what could be the clincher for many users, the Samsung tablets boast another capability lacking in the iPad 2: Adobe Flash playback.
– Want to try one? You’ll have to wait until June 8 for the Galaxy Tab 10.1 Wi-Fi, priced at $499 for the 16 GB version and $599 for 32 gigs. Samsung was not as specific with the release date for the Galaxy Tab 8.9 Wi-Fi, which it said would be available in “early summer” at $469 for 16 GB and $569 for 32 gigs.
– Best bit – photo of the iPad 2 next to the new thinner 10.1 shows the ipad was thinner – couldn’t be explained at the demo
11:17 – RIM Playbook
– RIM playbook launches April 19th in US – a few months later in UK
– It will ship with 2 app players that will run Android and Blackberry java applications
– Sounds…confusing
– Only supports Android 2.4 OS app’s i.e. app’s built for the phone, not tablet
13:05 – Amazon launches their Android Appstore
– Launched Tuesday 22nd for USA customers
– Android only
– Can Test Drive most app’s from your web browser. Click Test Drive and Amazon will launch an emmulated instance of Android on its EC2 cloud, which you’ll be able to control directly from your browser (it uses Flash).
– Free app of the day – Every day, Amazon will be choosing a premium application and making it free to consumers, giving people a reason to check in on the store on a frequent basis. This is made possible by the fact that Amazon, not developers, sets the pricing of each application.
– Amazon retains full control over how it wants to price your application. The setup is a bit confusing: upon submitting your application, you can set a ‘List Price’, which is the price you’d normally sell it at. Amazon will use a variety of market factors to determine what price it wants to use, and you get a 70% cut of the proceeds of each sale (which is the industry standard). In the event that Amazon steeply discounts your application, or offers it for free, you’re guaranteed to get 20% of the List Price.
– Angry Birds Rio is first free app
– Amazon will be undercutting Google’s own prices
– 8 easy steps to install the Amazon Appstore – http://carpeaqua.com/2011/03/22/8-easy-steps/
– Apple sues Amazon over use of the name App Store
– http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/22/apple_sues_amazon_over_app_store_name/
21:52 – Lendle
– had their Amazon API access revoked.
– Back up and running now.
– In business – need to be in control of key data.
– http://lendle.me/amazon-api-revocation/
– (Lendle is unfortnately US only for now.)
28:07 – iOS 4.3 Battery Issues
– Ian sees sub par battery performance on iPhone 4
– Others have too
– Disabled ping to see if that helps as it’s been tipped as an issue in various forums
– iOS 4.3.1 is now out – rumoured to address battery issues as well as publicised bugs
30:56 – UK 4G Auction Next Year
– New ‘4G’ network auction next year announced by Ofcom
– 4G refers to the next generation of mobile networks, which promise faster speeds, in particular for data.
– The sale, which Ofcom hopes will happen early next year, will involve two blocks of spectrum which should fulfil two purposes – making mobile internet coverage both wider and faster.
– The first block, the higher frequency 2.6gGHz band, should make all those smartphone users who are trying to watch video or play games online just a bit happier. It’s suited to providing large amounts of capacity over a compact area, so should help ease the congestion on city centre networks.
– The second block, the 800MHz band, is currently used for analogue television and becomes available next year once the digital switchover is complete. It is suitable for bringing mobile data services over wide areas, so it could mean that people in rural areas will find mobile broadband a better option than the fixed line variety.
– 3G auction raised billions, and this is 80% more spectrum – expectation is around £4 billion though
– UK falling behind – Yes, if we’re comparing the UK with Germany, the USA and Sweden, which have already started to roll out 4G networks. Ofcom admits that things haven’t moved quite as rapidly here as it might have hoped, but says it’s full speed ahead now. But even if everything goes to plan, consumers won’t see any 4G services before 2013.
34:43 – Wife says no, Apple says yes
– [Apple’s] focus this week has been to troubleshoot all the iPad 2s that customers are returning to the stores. One iPad came back with a post it note on it that said “Wife said no.” It was escalated as something funny, and two of the VPs got wind of it. They sent the guy an iPad 2 with a note on it that said “Apple said yes.”

Picks
Ian
Sky News iPad App
– Very ambitious app from Sky
– Free at the moment, will remain free for Sky customers but paid for everyone else
– Heavily focused on video which is very good quality and quick to stream
– Can browse a timeline of todays events
– Can also swipe for more detail – lose video but still here it – articles, photo’s, charts, graphics are then displayed
– Very impressed – excellent app
Henry
Wunderlist
– cross platform list app a la RTM.
– Andriod, iOS.
– Recent update has got rid of a few bugs.
– Email list items.
– Free (made with Titanium- javascript)

Myfitnesspal

My first pick of 2011 and it’s no surprise that it helps with one of the most popular New Year’s resolutions – dieting. Myfitnesspal is a web, iPhone and Android based weight/calorie tracking tool. It was first recommended by a friend last year and I immediately dismissed it as I hated the name and the web site design wasn’t the best. What a snob! Roll on a few months and at the start of 2011 I wanted to track more carefully my food intake. Partly to improve diet and partly to provide a food diary to help with migraine root cause analysis. After seeing myfitnesspal being recommended alongside RunKeeper I decided to look again at the service.

First good aspect of myfitnesspal is that it’s a totally free service. After downloading the iPhone app and creating an account the biggest plus of the experience so far was the capture of daily calorie intake. Myfitnesspal has a large database of foods that are easily searchable. It’s also stocked with lot’s of UK foods as well and it means a typical day’s food intake takes a couple of minutes tops to add in. The app also remembers foods you’ve previously eaten so if you are a Scot addicted to Frosties and Diet Irn-Bru (not at the same time I hasten to add) it takes seconds to add these in to the app. If a food doesn’t exist it’s fairly straightforward to add that to the database so it’s searchable from then on. Based on height, sex and weight myfitnesspal will display a daily target for calorie intake and guesstimate how your current intake will decrease, or increase, your overall weight. As I’ve only been using it for a couple of weeks it’s hard to say how accurate this side of the app is. However it really does hammer home how much you eat in a day to day basis. I’ve already switched a couple of foods to one’s with a far smaller calorie/fat/salt intake.

The app also allows you to track weight and exercise but these have to be manually inputted – no link up with other sites like Withings here. One interesting touch is that alongside weight tracking you can also track body measurements like neck size so you can see if you are staying static in weight but reducing fat/increasing muscle. The reports within Myfitnesspal are rudimentary and basic but allow you to see progress over time.

There’s also a social aspect in that you can have friends on the service but at the same time still keeping certain aspects of your profile private. I can see this being handy for people who are working together to encourage each other during weight loss but for me this is purely a solo adventure.

Overall I like the service myfitnesspal offers purely due to the functional rather than pretty front end making it easy to add data and the very complete food database. The fact it’s free is another plus point but I would be interested in hearing from anyone using a similar service that they would be happy to recommend.

iOS 4.3 Preview

A quick post with some news on iOS 4.3, recently released to developers and coming soon for all iOS users which came out while we were recording our latest podcast. Usually the NDA’s surrounding these releases mean information is thin on the ground but more and more we are seeing the details posted within hours of the developer releases. Looking at this Ars Technica post, the main new features are:

  • Airplay API – devlopers can now utilise API instead of the few Apple app’s that feature AirPlay support
  • Personal Hotspot – Launching with the Verizon iphone but coming soon to an iPhone near you turn your iPhone into a wifi hotspot, supporting up to five devices for 30 minutes tops unless there’s a power supply near you as well. Big question – will your telco support it and if so how much?
  • Choice. Honest. You too will be able to specify what your iPad’s hardware button can do. Prior to 4.2 it was an much loved by many orientation lock. 4.2 swapped it to a mute button and hid the orientation lock in with the multi tasking/playback controls. Many hated this and 4.3 allows the user to choose which of these two options are controlled via the hardware button. I am amazed – just not like Apple.
  • New gestures which look very handy. *groan* Four and five finger gestures, specifically pinch to return to the home screen and swipe to move between app’s. This is the biggest change for me and I’m surprised we’re seeing this in an OS point update rather than with iOS 5 or new hardware. Many are saying that this is the end of the home button but I can’t see it myself. The home button is important for one handed operation and a few other system related features which I don’t think will be replaced by gestures. The few saying this is really Boy Genius Report. The same people that have predicted Blu-Ray on the Mac. Video embed below shows the gestures in action. Nice.

Of course, I say all iOS users will be enjoying these features but this release drops support for iPhone 3G users and iPod Touch 2nd Gen. Performance of the hardware just not up to the latest features or Apple applying chinese burns to users to encourage hardware upgrades? Despite that negative, this update has some welcome new features. I just hope they are still featured when the final release is made available.