Tapfolio for iPad

post from Daring Fireball on 11 November 2011 09:04:05 PM. © Daring Fireball

My thanks to Tapfolio for sponsoring this week’s DF RSS feed. Tapfolio is a new animated, interactive stock market app for the iPad, with a great native UI and feel. Tapfolio’s graphs allow you to swipe and pinch-to-zoom your portfolio and visualize gains/losses instantly with real-time overlays. Compare up to five stocks over any arbitrary time period with a tap, and follow stock indexes or the price of gold with another tap.

Bottom line: Tapfolio is not an iPad-wrapper around an existing web-based stocks app. It’s a written-from-the-ground-up iPad stocks app. It’s really good. On sale now for just $2.99 on the App Store.

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Read The Full Article:
http://tapfolio.com/a/?type=df

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Doolie iPad Storybook App for Kids Price Drop to
.99 on 11/11/11

post from prMac on 11 November 2011 07:41:00 PM. © prMac

Ever After Publications has announced a price drop on Doolie 1.0, their first storybook kids app for the iPad. This is in celebration of Friday, which is when the date is aligned in a palindrome for the first time in a century! This price reduction is for a limited time only - commencing on Nov 11th and will be ending on Nov 13th so be quick to grab a copy while the sale lasts. Doolie kids iPad app is a heart-warming tale about a little African giraffe 'Doolie' who ponders his purpose in life.

Read The Full Article:
http://prmac.com/release-id-33688.htm

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Luma Labs Jammed By a Crummy Patent

post from Daring Fireball on 11 November 2011 05:04:33 PM. © Daring Fireball

This is angering for so many reasons. The LumaLoop is a great product, and Duncan Davidson is a friend. But the main thing is that it’s just so clearly unfair.

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Read The Full Article:
http://lu.ma/blogs/news/4540122-an-open-letter-to-our-customers-past-and-future

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Sprint to Begin Locking iPhone 4S GSM SIMs Today

post from Daring Fireball on 11 November 2011 04:04:52 PM. © Daring Fireball

Mark Hearn, writing for SprintFeed:

An internal Sprint memo states that starting on 11/11/11 ?alliPhone 4S devices will have the SIM locked.? The memo also goeson to state that ?the locking occurs during the activationprocess and is invisible to the customer.? Such statementssuggest that Sprint?s iPhone 4S variant does, or should we saydid ship with an unlocked SIM. But all is not lost for you earlyadopters, it is clearly noted that this SIM lock update will notimpact any iPhone 4S activated prior to 11/11/11.

I can verify that the Sprint iPhone 4S review unit I tested from Apple was not SIM-locked. When I was in Canada for the Çingleton Symposium conference last month, I popped in a GSM SIM from a native Canadian and it worked just fine. (Popping in an AT&T SIM while in the U.S. had no effect.) Not sure what Sprint’s thinking here, but they’re removing a very useful feature that should be a great selling point for frequent international travelers.

(Via MacRumors.)

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Read The Full Article:
http://www.sprintfeed.com/2011/11/all-iphone-4s-sims-to-be-locked-at-activation-s
tarting-november-11th/

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More on the Sprint iPhone 4S International
Roaming Situation

post from Daring Fireball on 11 November 2011 04:04:52 PM. © Daring Fireball

Jason Snell:

It?s unclear about Sprint iPhone 4S models purchased beforeNovember 11. They may remain SIM-unlocked forever, though it?spossible Sprint will be able to issue some sort of update thatlocks them.
So, if you?re a savvy international traveler who wants theoption of using a foreign micro-SIM in your Sprint or VerizoniPhone 4S, now you know the deal: Keep paying your bills, andafter 60 days (for Verizon) or 90 days (for Sprint), you can calland request that the carrier unlock your micro-SIM slot. Then youcan buy pre-paid cards to your heart?s content.

Why make you wait for this at all? This is a huge advantage both carriers have over AT&T (which won’t unlock your GSM SIM, period, no matter what).

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Read The Full Article:
http://www.macworld.com/article/163545/2011/11/sprint.html

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Logitech CEO Says Company Lost $100 Million on
Google TV

post from Daring Fireball on 11 November 2011 04:04:52 PM. © Daring Fireball

But it was an open $100 million, so they’ve got that.

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Read The Full Article:
http://www.theverge.com/2011/11/10/2553406/logitech-ceo-google-tv-cost-us-dearly-
no-revue-replacement-coming

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Holding Sway

post from Daring Fireball on 11 November 2011 03:02:58 PM. © Daring Fireball

Glenn Fleishman, concluding his piece for The Economist on the demise of Flash for the mobile web:

One consequence of Adobe’s move might be to spur onHTML5. As our columnist recently discussed, the up-and-comingweb standard — partially implemented in many current releases ofweb browsers — incorporates a number of Flash components.Browsers are becoming more sophisticated in handling animation(for games and charting), audio and video as a result. Widespreadadoption of the new standard is likely to make it impossible forany one company to hold sway over online interaction. It may betoo soon for Apple to gloat.

I was nodding in agreement with Fleishman until this paragraph. I just don’t get this. Remember Jobs’s “Thoughts on Music”? Jobs wrote:

Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free musicencoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any playercan play music purchased from any store, and any store can sellmusic which is playable on all players. This is clearly the bestalternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in aheartbeat. If the big four music companies would license Appletheir music without the requirement that it be protected with aDRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunesstore. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music.

Critics called bullshit on this, arguing that Apple liked its DRM wrapper for music, because that’s what kept users locked into iTunes, and that Jobs claimed Apple would embrace no-DRM music only because he knew the major music labels would never agree to it. But when the music labels did, in fact, agree to drop DRM, Apple did exactly what Jobs said it would: embraced it. And iTunes’s success continued unabated.

I don’t see how Apple could be any more clear in its actions or words that it supports and encourages the growth of a truly open web. Apple’s goal is simply to provide the best experience, period, both with native apps (closed) and the web (open).

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Read The Full Article:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2011/11/interactive-technology

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Holiday Decorating for Christmas Trees just got
easier

Show Me Decorating announces special pricing just in time for Holiday decorating with it's new Recipe for Holiday Decorating App for the iphone and ipad. Show Me Decorating 1.4.1 for iOS devices with step by step visuals and videos for Christmas trees that look a like a designer decorated it. Show Me Decorating provides users with access to "News You Can Use", containing fun decorating tips from the experts that is constantly updated.

Read The Full Article:
http://prmac.com/release-id-33685.htm

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iCloud and Four-Letter Words

I was a guest this week on MacBreak Weekly, with host Andy Ihnatko and fellow guests Chris Breen and Tonya Engst:

We complain a little about iCloud, predict a little about 2012,ask Siri what’s up with that, and more.

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Read The Full Article:
http://twit.tv/show/macbreak-weekly/272

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Kid Science: Frog Dissection special price cut
November 12 and 13

California-based developer Selectsoft is offering the educational iOS app Kid Science: Frog Dissection for just $0.99 this weekend only. Kid Science: Frog Dissection offers a great way to study how a frog's body works. Video and narration capture the dissection experience without all the smell and mess. You can also follow the step-by-step video instructions to perform your own hands-on frog dissection.

Read The Full Article:
http://prmac.com/release-id-33629.htm

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