Link: The Fake Pokemon Yellow iOS Saga →

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Chris

Ars Technica documents an interesting case of a blatant ripoff app being approved and making its way to number 3 on the charts within the App Store. An interesting read on the Apple approval process and how this fake Pokemon app managed to gain so much attention.

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Link: “Finally” Playbook OS includes Native E-Mail →

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Tarun

The price has been slashed to $199 as well. Too little too late?

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Link: Barnes & Noble Launches $199 Nook Tablet →

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Tarun

This makes it mostly comparible to the Kindle Fire, except for the storage and RAM, which may not be an issue given the low demand for resources in a reader-tablet. As media gets richer, however, the Kindle has the clear advantage.

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Link: Office for iPad Coming Soon →

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Tarun

Looks slick.

Update: Or not.

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Link: NY Times Gets Less Love from Apple After Foxconn Reporting →

Posted on February 17, 2012 by Tarun

Interesting insight from the Washington Post, noting that the NY Times has lost some exclusivity in publishing information about Apple products because their recent investigations into Apple’s supply chain:

Under normal circumstances, that combination of shortcomings would qualify as an embarrassment for the New York Times. Yet if the lack of access is even remotely related to Apple’s dim view of the paper’s investigative reporting, the paper may take pride in losing the hunt for “Mountain Lion.”

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Link: How Third-Parties Exploited Safari Cookie Handling via Ads →

Posted on February 17, 2012 by Tarun

Safari contains third-party blocks for cookies across all the OSs that it runs on; however, Google needed to leave a cookie on the device in order to preserve +1 analytics. Their solution is quite devious, and dare I say — “Evil”?

Google has since blocked this from occurring, but other third-parties are still using methods that are inexcusable.

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Weekly Download #29: iPad 3, Apple TV, Patent Uselessness, Facebook, Bing & Social, Google’s Living Room

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Tarun

This week we talk about the iPad rumor mill; Apple & Google’s war in the living room; More on patent uselessness; Facebook’s push to show more ads; Bing & a look at social media SEO. This show could be sponsored by you! Check us out on our website for more information.

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:58 — 64.1MB)

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Link: Apple sold more iOS devices in 2011 that all the Macs sold it in 28 years →

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Tarun

The chart is absolutely insane.

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Link: Apple Announces 10.8 OS X “Mountain Lion” Preview →

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Chris

Apple has announced Mac OS 10.8 “Mountain Lion”, which integrates more of the iOS features “we love” and makes them the front and center apps for the desktop.

Pretty bold to see Twitter integration coming to the Mac now.

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Link: The Ethics of Google →

Posted on February 15, 2012 by Tarun

My post on a new blog from my friends Ben & Ben, “Bumba Broadsides”, on the Ethics of Google and the recent anti-trust search debate.

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Link: Data Throttling Statement from AT&T →

Posted on February 15, 2012 by Chris

“The growth is now driven primarily by smartphones,” the executive wrote on AT&T’s Innovation Space blog. “Add to that new customer additions and the continuing trend of upgrades from feature phones to smartphones, and you have a wireless data tsunami.”

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Link: iPad 4G →

Posted on February 14, 2012 by Tarun

A few Apple rumors becoming confirmed: the launch date will be a week after an event held on March 7th, and it will include LTE capability on both AT&T and Verizon.

Many enthusiasts (myself included) believe that the only way the LTE antenna would be included is if the battery life isn’t sacrificed. I’m going to bet that the iPad 2 (the current model) will be eliminated entirely, except for a black version at 16GB with no antenna.

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Link: Facebook Pushes Ads on Photos →

Posted on February 10, 2012 by Tarun

As pointed out by the Huffington Post:

The new design moves caption, comments and advertisements to the right-hand side of the picture. Previously, users could view captions and post comments directly below the photo.

I thought the new design puts emphasis on the photo more and makes for a better experience, since mostly commenting is secondary to actually viewing the photo (hence the left to right flow). Of course, the biggest jarring feature aside from the photo is the advertisement, but I quickly turned on my blinders towards it.

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Link: Google Developing Home-Entertainment System →

Posted on February 10, 2012 by Tarun

Amir Efrati and Ethan Smith, WSJ:

It’s unclear which retailers would sell the entertainment device, which would stream music from Google’s online music-storage service and pipe it wirelessly to Google-designed speakers or other Web-connected devices in people’s homes, according to these people. In the future, such a device could potentially stream other forms of digital media such as video, one of these people said.

Apple already does something like this, if you have Airplay compatible devices, so this would have to be better. Whatever that means.

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Link: Microsoft to launch Windows 8 ‘Consumer Preview’ on Leap Year Day →

Posted on February 10, 2012 by Tarun

They clearly want to release the product on a day everyone will forget for a little while.

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Link: Apple TV to Stream Live Concert →

Posted on February 10, 2012 by Tarun

As most have pointed out, this is a prelude of the capabilities of live streaming from Apple. But, this is also something they have full control over and a quicktime stream to boot.

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Link: No Flash on Chrome for Android →

Posted on February 7, 2012 by Tarun

Thinking Nelson is pretty appropriate here.

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Link: Honeywell Files Suit Against Nest Labs for Patent Infringement →

Posted on February 6, 2012 by Tarun

Sad. Yet another example of patents being utterly useless.

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Link: Verizon and Redbox Launching Streaming and Physical Media Service →

Posted on February 6, 2012 by Chris

Details are still scarce, but Verizon and Redbox are launching a service for subscribers that will allow for streaming or renting of physical media. It will be interesting to see if they can beat the current Netflix pricing.

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Link: Facebook’s Only Weakness →

Posted on February 6, 2012 by Tarun

Sebastian Anthony, ExtremeTech:

Facebook is stuck between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, it has to provide a compelling mobile experience because its users demand it; but by doing so, it leeches traffic away from the lucrative desktop browser version. Facebook needs to find a way of unobtrusively advertising on mobile as soon as possible — probably by pumping sponsored posts into your news feed, or something along those lines.

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Link: Push to Digital Textbooks →

Posted on February 6, 2012 by Tarun

Just two weeks after Apple announces iBooks author and textbooks for the iPad.

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Link: Dangers of Fracking →

Posted on February 6, 2012 by Tarun

Just scroll (becoming a common theme with modern web design).

(via Daring Fireball)

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Link: Bing’s Deal with Social →

Posted on February 6, 2012 by Tarun

Amidst the recent controversy of Google indexing it’s Plus results amongst other search results, Bing developer Stefan Weitz speaks out on AllThingsD about the deals that Microsoft has with Facebook and Twitter:

Us partnering is the only way we’re going to make a big difference here. We have to use the whole web to actualize our vision of helping people do stuff, not just find stuff. And everyone wins, which is nice.

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Weekly Download #28: Apple’s New King of Retail, Music Quality, Siri Reliability, Facebook, Tablets

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Tarun

This was a really great podcast discussing Apple’s new SVP of Retail; How music quality and streaming ability haven’t lined up; Siri’s (un)reliability during its “beta”; Facebook’s ability to make Spotfiy a booming success; Tablets as the new PCs. Enjoyed the podcast as much as we did? Consider being a sponsor! Check out the website for more info.

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:34 — 67.8MB)

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Link: Facebook Filing for IPO Today →

Posted on February 1, 2012 by Chris

Looks like it’s finally happening…

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