Apple picker A pressure-sensitive capacitive stylus for the new iPad, incompatible LTE for European carriers, Apple patents for royalties or the end of iWork.com. All the tidbits from the past week in one neat package - that's Apple Week.
The award for downloading the 25 billionth app was won by a Chinese (5/3)
We already know that [25 billion apps have been downloaded] from the App Store. However, Apple has now revealed the details and this milestone in a press release. The lucky person who downloaded the 25th app is Chinese Chunli Fu from Qingdao. He received an iTunes Gift Card worth $000 for downloading the "Where's My Water? Free", for which he did not even have to spend yuan (Chinese currency).
Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, Eddie Cue, said in a statement:
We would like to thank customers and developers for helping us reach this historic milestone of 25 billion app downloads. When we launched the App Store less than four years ago, we never imagined that apps could become such a phenomenon or that developers could create such a huge selection of iOS apps.
Source: 9to5Mac.com
Ten One Design Announces Pressure Sensitive Stylus (5/3)
Although Steve Jobs said in 2007 when introducing the first iPhone that the stylus is nonsense and the only natural tool for interaction is our fingers, there are still places where a precise stylus will serve better than a finger. For example, when drawing, we use it much better with a stylus, it replaces a pencil or a brush. However, due to the capacitive display, the styluses are still imprecise and do not respond to pressure.
However, Ten One Design has introduced a stylus that will connect to the iPad via Bluetooth 4.0 (for the new model) to transmit pressure data. The manufacturer will probably also introduce its own application, where it will be possible to demonstrate all the features of the product, and at the same time release the SDK for use in the applications of other developers. In other applications, the device will behave like a regular capacitive stylus, but the SDK will allow you to ignore other finger and palm touches and at the same time allow you to display the selected color directly on the pen using LEDs.
[youtube id=RrEB9xGGcLQ width=”600″ height=”350″]
Source: macstories.net
The first advertisement for the new iPad (March 7)
Apple shortly after the launch of the new iPad launched the first TV commercial highlighting the innovative tablet with Retina display. And it is on the amazing display that the half-minute spot traditionally focuses. After all, this is a feature that no other tablet on the market offers.
When the display gets this good, the colors are more vibrant. The words are sharp. Everything is more brilliant. Because when a display gets this good, it's just you and the things you care about. The amazing Retina display on the new iPad.
[youtube id=”DJxZ0HVQXo8″ width=”600″ height=”350″]
Source: MacRumors.com
Apple offered Android phone manufacturers patents for a license fee (March 7)
If there's one thing that's made Steve Jobs sick over the past few years, it's been Android riding the popularity of iOS, which the Apple co-founder wouldn't hesitate to declare thermonuclear war on. It is rather not a clear step that Apple has resorted to at the moment. Legal battles over patents between the Cupertino company and other smartphone manufacturers are on the agenda, and Apple is coming out of them with mixed success.
However, according to some sources, Apple has offered to license smartphone patents to other manufacturers for a fee of $15 per piece of hardware. Lawyers around the world where Apple is suing others are certainly costing all companies a lot of money, and a partial settlement in similar patent royalties could save a lot of money. Companies could also focus more on innovation instead of haggling in the courts. After all, Microsoft also offers its patents to Android phone manufacturers for a fee of $10, making more money than licensing its own Windows Phone mobile operating system.
Perhaps thanks to this step, Steve Jobs is turning in his grave, he himself said in his biography that he is willing to spend the last penny to destroy Android, since it is a stolen product, however, the lawsuits in recent months have rather damaged Apple and the permanently tense situation is thanks to unsustainable by them in the long term.
Source: ArsTechnica.com
New trailer for Angry Birds straight from space (March 8)
Rovio is working directly with NASA on the upcoming Angry Birds Space, which will be released on March 22. Now a new trailer has appeared on the company's website, where an engineer from NASA talks about the upcoming game and demonstrates how birds behave in space with zero gravity. Angry Birds Space will bring 60 game levels, new birds and above all a new physics system based on the gravity of bodies in space.
[youtube id=lxI1L1RiSJQ width=”600″ height=”350″]
Source: macstories.net
LTE in the new iPad may be incompatible with Europe (8/3)
When Phil Schiller introduced the new iPad, he also mentioned support for 4th generation LTE networks. However, according to the specifications, these might not be compatible with the transmitters scattered across Europe. This is evidenced by the British version of the Apple.com website for the technical specifications of the new tablet. According to the information provided, the iPad supports LTE frequencies of 700 MHz and 2100 Mhz (AT&T), while in Europe you will find frequencies of 800 Mhz, 1800 Mhz and 2800 MHz. So there are a couple of possibilities here - either this is an actual chip limitation (reportedly Qualcomm's MDM9600) or the frequencies will be specific to each country or region. It is interesting that Japan, for example, will not have LTE support in the iPad at all, they have to make do with DC-HSDPA. Fortunately, the iPad at least has backward support for 3G networks.
Source: AppleInsider.com
The iWork.com service is ending. Apple wants to move everything to iCloud (March 9)
Apple has announced that it will retire iWork.com, which has been in beta until now, on July 31st. The reason for canceling this service is simple - Apple is going to transfer all documents to iCloud.
Dear iWork.com user,
Thank you for participating in the iWork.com public beta.
Last year we launched iCloud, which stores your music, photos, documents and more. It sends everything wirelessly to all your devices. Today, we have over 40 million documents stored in iCloud from millions of iWork users. Learn more about iCloud.
With the new ability to sync iWork documents via iCloud, the iWork.com beta service will no longer be available. As of June 31, 2012, you will no longer be able to access or view documents on iWork.com.
We recommend that you log into iWork.com and download all documents to your computer before July 31, 2012. For more detailed information on how to save a copy of your documents to your computer, read the help article on Apple.com.
S pozdravem
iWork team
Source: MacRumors.com
Siri will learn Italian this year (10.)
In iOS 5.1, the voice assistant Siri learned a new language - Japanese, which was added to the existing English, German and French. However, several new languages could come this year, probably in iOS 6. Italian has now been confirmed by Tim Cook himself in an email reply to one of the users. He complained about some things where Italy is behind against Great Britain. Cook responded to the email:
Michele
i love italy Italian will be supported in SIRI this year.
Tim.
There were earlier reports that some additional languages could be added during 2012, namely Spanish, Italian, Korean and Chinese. We can only hope that one day our sound-picturesque Czech, and thus Slovak, will also receive support.
Terrible what's going on with that app. selling patents and apple? that's what apple was about, that once there were them, they didn't give it to anyone. it can be seen that now they are only after money as if they don't have enough of it. Poor Steve…He wouldn't allow this. They do the exact opposite of his philosophy. And what will happen in a few years? I don't even want to know… I'm disgusted :(
Apart from the fact that you are disgusted, you are also quite short-sighted by all accounts and you still need to mature. Everyone is after money and Apple is no exception. I don't know the reasons for this action, but there could be many of them. It doesn't have to be about hiring lawyers or getting money. Maybe it's just a move to show good will and offer something that maybe no one wants and then claim "we had good will". How about lowering the price of the iPhone thanks to fees collected from other platforms? Apple will earn the same share and you may save. Would you like that? We don't know the reasons, we don't know how it will go on, and most importantly, it's pointless to judge them. Even if Apple smelled like a sewer and you were sick, I don't care, the main thing is that the products are worth something.
did the products cost?
Basically, as long as they don't license iOS, I don't really care if they license some patents, because it's true that in the long run, lawsuits don't make sense and Google and therefore other manufacturers will still steal Apple's ideas, at least Apple will have more profits from it , that basically they will steal it legally, then they will also be able to say, well, you have the option to buy a license for this and that, but you, not you, stole it, and immediately the court will also be a little easier. Well, mainly so that they license sensibly and not everything... Well, and mainly now I'm interested in LTE, I hope that when the drones O2, VF, TM here get LTE frequencies, they will be the ones in the new iPad, and especially that the iPad we had LTE so that we were not completely without that support.