Apple Releases iOS 5.1.1

post from Daring Fireball on 07 May 2012 03:03:00 PM. © Daring Fireball

Only 50 MB. Hurrah for incremental updates.

?

Read The Full Article:
http://www.loopinsight.com/2012/05/07/apple-releases-ios-5-1-1/

Digg this

Evernote Acquires Penultimate

post from Daring Fireball on 07 May 2012 02:03:21 PM. © Daring Fireball

Phil Libin, writing for the Evernote weblog:

Penultimate is hugely popular. In fact, according to Apple, it?sthe #4 best-selling paid iPad app of all time. When you have sucha great product, the last thing you want to do is mess with it.That?s why Penultimate creator, Ben Zotto, is joining Evernote tohead up future app development. Penultimate will stay a separate,elegant application and will get many much-requested Evernote-yimprovements including full search and synchronization. Ben willalso lead the effort to put handwriting and digital inkfunctionality into other Evernote products and platforms, soyou?ll see handwriting cross-pollination popping up everywhere.

Penultimate is a great app, but I think it’s been eclipsed by Paper.

?

Read The Full Article:
http://blog.evernote.com/2012/05/07/evernote-acquires-penultimate/

Digg this

Dalton Caldwell: Two Brilliant Moves That Helped
Create the Apple iOS Powerhouse

post from Daring Fireball on 07 May 2012 02:03:21 PM. © Daring Fireball

Dalton Caldwell, hailing the strategic wisdom of Apple’s 2002 decision to take the iPod (and iTunes) to Windows, and the way they segment the iPhone market with older models, rather than designing new low-end models from scratch:

Why hasn’t Dell or Samsung or HP implemented their own version ofthe ?Moore’s law market segmentation? strategy? Nothing about thisstrategy would seem to require it to happen at only Apple (or isspecific to mobile devices). I am sure there are a lot of reasons,and there is a very good chance I simply don’t understand thehardware supply chain complexity.

I suspect one reason no other phone maker does this is that so few high-end phones from three years ago would have any appeal today. iPhones are designed to stand the test of time.

?

Read The Full Article:
http://daltoncaldwell.com/2-brilliant-moves-created-apple-ios

Digg this

Apple Forced to Respond to Ultrabooks

post from Daring Fireball on 07 May 2012 02:03:21 PM. © Daring Fireball

Erica Ogg:

Today, you can buy an ?ultrabook? that?s thicker than an inch, isheavier than 4 pounds, has a 14-inch screen, a traditionalspinning hard drive, and decent battery life. They?re also pricedbetween $700 and $900, or slightly below the $999 entry level11.6-inch MacBook Air. In other words — nothing has changed. PCmakers have been making laptops for years that could beat Apple onspecs and often price and still Apple has done its own thing andcontinued to rake in profits.

Exactamundo. Apple is about as fearful of ultrabooks as they were of netbooks.

?

Read The Full Article:
http://gigaom.com/apple/apple-making-a-799-air-in-fear-of-ultrabooks-nope/

Digg this

Finally: Amtrak to use iPhones for ticket
scanning

post from Apple on 07 May 2012 01:04:24 PM. © Apple

This is not a ticket — yet.

Our nation’s rail system is about to take a big step forward by placing less emphasis on paper tickets and introducing the iPhone as an important tool for conductors.

The New York Times has a story on Monday about the ongoing trials in which Amtrak is using the iPhone as a ticket scanner and a more efficient way of boarding passengers and filling in empty seats. The report says Amtrak has been training conductors since November 2011 to scan tickets with the iPhone. It’s only been active on a few routes — between Boston and Portland, Me., and from Sacramento to San Jose, Calif. — but they’re planning to expand.

This might sound simple and not totally novel; there are local metro systems like Boston’s MBTA that are about to start using smartphones as tickets. But as I’ve recently learned, this is a welcome improvement for the tens of thousands of people that commute daily or often travel by rail.

Amtrak isn’t a factor in people’s daily lives in places I’ve lived like San Francisco or Los Angeles to the same degree it seems to be in the Northeastern Corridor. Since moving east I’ve become acquainted with Amtrak commuting between Philadelphia, New York City and Washington, D.C. What has most surprised me about rail travel has been how truly old-school it still is. Yes, it’s a transportation technology first invented almost 200 years ago, but it seems little progress has been made in terms of administration and passenger logistics.

Retraining conductors and passengers

I can buy an Amtrak ticket online, sure. But when I get a ticket confirmation email with a bar code, I can’t just walk up to a kiosk at the train station and scan the code from my iPhone’s screen — I either have to print the bar code or swipe a credit card. But the thing that needs the most improvement is what happens once on board: conductors still physically punch your ticket once you’re seated. He or she then pockets your ticket stub before you get off the train and sends them to a central location.

As you might imagine, passenger information and seating charts might be something useful to have in real time, especially when people change what stop they get off at or take an alternate train at the last minute. The NYT report includes how iPhone-scanning and real-time info will be a change from the current process:

With the new iPhone-powered system, conductors can monitor passenger check-ins in real time. That will help them manage seating: if there are passengers who don?t show up, for example, it will be easier to fill empty seats with other passengers.
?When it was all a manual system there was a lot of guesswork involved,? said Patricia Quinn, executive director of the Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority, which contracts with Amtrak to operate the train service from Boston to Portland.

This is great news for Amtrak — though it will cost the agency $7.5 million for the hardware and software to institute the new process. But it should also make life easier for passengers, which is why I’m so eager for late summer: that’s when Amtrak says the devices will be rolled out across the country, to more than 1,700 conductors.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

Read The Full Article:
http://gigaom.com/apple/finally-amtrak-to-use-iphones-for-ticket-scanning/

Digg this

Wake Up. Be Bold.

post from Daring Fireball on 07 May 2012 01:04:22 PM. © Daring Fireball

I’m sure this campaign will sell a lot of BlackBerrys and turn RIM right around.

?

Read The Full Article:
http://wakeupbebold.com/

Digg this

The Avengers

post from Daring Fireball on 07 May 2012 01:04:22 PM. © Daring Fireball

Saw The Avengers last night with my boy and we both loved it. Good characters, good effects, relentless pacing, and a nice sense of continuity with the movies that came before it. In a word: it was fun. And: it was funny. Ruben Bolling tweeted:

You can spend $800,000 on a certain special effect, and theaudience can yawn. Enhance it with a genuine laugh and theaudience is vibrating.

Writer/director Joss Whedon wielded a deft touch and deserves acclaim. It really offers the best of what theatrical big-budget blockbusters can offer. Effects that demand a big screen, and laughs that are best shared with a packed house.

?

Read The Full Article:
https://twitter.com/RubenBolling/status/198775462074388481

Digg this

[Sponsor] Harvest

Harvest is a painless time tracking tool for creative professionals available anywhere you find yourself working. Track time via the web, iPhone and now from your Mac desktop. Start a timer with a global hotkey, and remove idle time just as easily. Harvest for Mac is lighting fast and always accessible, so you spend less time managing your timesheet, and more time focusing on the task at hand. Watch a demo, and give Harvest a spin with a free 30 day trial.

Read The Full Article:
http://www.getharvest.com/df

Digg this

2007s Pre-M3 Version of Android: The Google
Sooner

Steven Troughton-Smith:

When Google first showed off Android, they showed it running on adevice very similar to Blackberries or Nokia E-class devices ofthe time. This device was the Google Sooner - an OMAP850 devicebuilt by HTC, with no touchscreen or WiFi. This was the Androidreference device, the device they originally built the OS on.
Recently, I got access to a Google Sooner running a very earlyversion of Android. With all the recent information coming out ofthe Oracle vs Google trial, I thought it would be interesting totake you on a brief tour of the OS.

Fascinating stuff.

?

Read The Full Article:
http://blog.steventroughtonsmith.com/2012/05/2007s-pre-m3-version-of-android-goog
le.html

Digg this

Auryn Supports Librarians Without Borders for
Children's Literacy

Auryn Inc. is teaming up with Librarians Without Borders (LWB) for a second year as the premier sponsor during their service project in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. LWB has been supporting the Asturias Academy school library there since 2009. While LWB is in Quetzaltenango from May 3rd-13th, Auryn will donate money for every app sold, towards LWBs mission, which is to improve access to information resources in developing regions regardless of language, geography, or religion.

Read The Full Article:
http://prmac.com/release-id-42378.htm

Digg this