Microsoft says it “worked with Apple to create a solution that benefited our mutual customers.” The company’s new SkyDrive app for iOS “is slightly different than other SkyDrive apps in that people interested in buying additional storage will do so via the web versus in the app,” says a Microsoft spokesperson. “Earlier this week, Apple approved the SkyDrive app for release and we’re excited to allow people everywhere to start using it.”
Once again, Apple did not cave to the “bigger players” and gave Microsoft no special treatment. It enforced the same terms on Microsoft as everyone else; if your user pays you money through an App Store app, you must use In-App Purchase and give Apple 30%.
Microsoft’s original submissions were rejected because Microsoft tried to circumvent this policy. As is now the norm, Microsoft got around the ‘problem’ the same way everyone else has. They do not allow the user to upgrade their SkyDrive storage in the app, only via the web.
In fact, I don’t really understand why this is news at all. This is just standard Apple policy.
Gascón said Foulkes discussed the long and laborious process of researching and producing a kill-switch technology for devices, and also said the next two generations of iPhones have already been developed.
“They preceded Tim Cook,” the district attorney said he was told of the future iPhones.
It’s an interesting tidbit, because the consensus opinion has been that the iPhone 5 was the last iPhone Jobs had any meaningful involvement in.
The BBC has today revealed some of the all-star cast that will mark the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who. David Tennant and Billie Piper will join current Doctor and companion, Matt Smith and Jenna-Louise Coleman, while John Hurt (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Alien, Harry Potter) will also co-star.
Of course, there’s no official word yet, but Apple has been active during the conference talking to developers about its plans and ensuring plenty of games will support the joypad at launch.
Hopefully, this comes alongside a joypad control API for iOS so third-party controllers are also viable. I don’t trust Apple to make a “traditional” controller, which I want for some titles.
For instance, when the device is turned on, it will immediately display a Facebook user’s home screen, the source said, a fact reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal. Facebook’s camera and messaging apps will be the default apps for the core functions of the phone, the Facebook employee also said.
Seeing as Facebook already has a cache of Android apps and Android developers at their disposal, they might as well experiment with a fork of Android. The additional resource investment required is almost negligible.
Google is finally opening up its Google Shopping Express service to the public today, with the same day delivery service being made available as a test to select users in San Francisco and the Peninsula from San Mateo to San Jose. Participating retailers include, as we’ve previously reported: Target, Walgreens, Staples, American Eagle, Toys“R”Us/Babies“R”Us, Office Depot, San Francisco’s Blue Bottle Coffee, Raley’s Nob Hill Foods, and Palo Alto Toy & Sport.
If you had told me ten years ago that you would be able to get same-day shipping on consumer goods online, I would have said you were crazy.
If you had also divulged that Google would be the company to provide that service, I would have considered you insane.
The iCloud that is used for apps and services like iMessage, Mail, iCloud backup, iTunes, Photo Stream and more is built on a completely different technology stack from the developer APIs that are causing problems. iWork actually does use developer APIs, but only the (still rough) document syncing, not Core Data, which has been causing the most issues.
So when I say that there are two iClouds, I mean that there are two iClouds. One of them is used heavily inside Cupertino for its own services and the other is offered as a developer API and used only selectively for Apple’s own apps. I’m not here to say whether that’s right or wrong or fair or not or whatever, those are just the facts.
iCloud is merely a brand encompassing all of Apple’s web services and has no connection to the underlying technology.
The “iCloud” APIs given to developers are specifically designed for data storage and sync, whether that be via key-value storage, Core Data, or a file-based method. Apple has never advertised them as anything more … because they don’t do anything more.
Mail, Photo Stream, iCloud backup, iTunes and the like are not mere datastores. They can’t use the developer APIs in the same way Facebook couldn’t build a social network on top of them either.
The developer APIs aren’t meant for hosting web services. Web services necessitate daemons, shared databases, external compute power and the like — they have to do stuff far beyond syncing data.
Hence, the fact that Apple uses a separate technology stack than that it gives to developers is not a matter of right or wrong, just practicalities. The public iCloud APIs are (trying to) simplify data sync for developers and that’s it. If you need to do more than that with a remote server (as Apple does), you have to go elsewhere.
Finally, what about Dark Sky? Don’t worry, we’re not abandoning it — in fact, we’ll have an update in the App Store in the coming weeks that will add in our improved weather forecasts and add support for the UK.
They announced a whole host of other stuff too, including their plans to expand into an entire data-rich weather service, but what I care about came in the last line of the post: Dark Sky is imminent to the UK.
“Sometimes I feel closer to the “anonymous” personalities than people that work at my store,” offered one of the more active members.
Like on Twitter, the personalities are still completely anonymous during the Google+ Hangouts. The people typically, if they even have their cameras enabled, wear masks or other items to obscure their identities. “With the Google Hangouts, keeping identities private is becoming more of a challenge,” one person said. Since Google requires users to have profiles and names to use the Hangout service, these users have created fake Google accounts with fake names (sometimes that match their fake Twitter identities) to maintain anonymity.
So far, these problems have persisted through three different leaders of Apple Retail. Why can’t Apple sort this out?
Other retail chains don’t compel their employees to setup underground communities to let out their frustrations.
Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced a trio of milestones achieved during the launch week of StarCraft® II: Heart of the Swarm™. More than 1.1 million viewers tuned into the company’s 21-hour, global broadcast of launch events and community celebrations around the world, with peak concurrent viewership reaching over 125,000, as reported by Twitch. As of the end of its first two days of sales, Heart of the Swarm had sold through approximately 1.1 million copies worldwide, including both retail and digital sales.
I like Starcraft II a lot and this love now extends to Heart of the Swarm as well. Naturally, being an expansion, the general gameplay is similar to Wings of Liberty, although the various new unit abilities do make multiplayer a lot more micro-intensive.
Other reviews have rated the campaign very highly, but I can’t comment as I haven’t yet been compelled to start it.
Some suggested that in Apple’s next mobile operating system, Ive is pushing a more “flat design” that is starker and simpler, according to developers who have spoken to Apple employees but didn’t have further details.
Podcasts 1.2 came out today — the tape reel is gone.
As far as sync is concerned, we knew we would likely need an alternative to Google Reader as early as last year. At the time, the option that seemed to make the most sense was to embrace iCloud and Core Data as the new sync solution of choice. We spent a considerable amount of time on this effort, but iCloud and Core Data syncing had issues that we simply could not resolve.
Black Pixel has some of the smartest Mac developers in the world and in July last year, they hired Michael Jurewitz. Jurewitz was Apple’s lead developer evangelist. If Black Pixel can’t workaround the issues with iCloud and Core Data, other developers don’t stand a chance.
An inside source from Apple (also confirmed by a third party) told Gizmorati that its both devices, the iPhone 5S and the iPad 5 will be unveiled during a special event called ‘Original Passion, New Ideas’, on June 29, 2013.
I can categorically say that this is not true. Apple is never going to have a press event on a Saturday.
Publish your app(s) in the Windows Store and/or Windows Phone Store and fill out the form at http://aka.ms/CashForApps to participate. You can submit up to 10 apps per Store and get $100 for each qualified app up to $2000.
$100 per submission is a pathetic payout for any given app of a decent quality. Obviously, the $100 is not supposed to fund the development of your app by itself. It is only meant as an incentive.
Still, the upfront feebleness of the reward doesn’t help Windows Phone’s PR at all. It feels like a move a company makes in desperation, when they are clamouring for marketshare but do not have any money left for marketing to reverse the decline. Sadly, if it wasn’t for cash-cow Microsoft financing the unit, that hypothetical situation would apply to Windows Phone now.
A much better strategy for Microsoft to boost Windows Phone development would be to seed key indie developers with hardware. Sponsoring free sales of apps is another alternative use. In fact, take the million dollar kitty and split it equally between the top ten developers on iOS in exchange for their commitment to the Windows Phone platform.
In essence, instead of giving a negligible amount to many, do stuff that gives a reasonable payback to some.
One HTC executive said the company has a had a problem managing its component suppliers as HTC “changed its order forecasts drastically and frequently following last year’s unexpected slump in shipments.” The executive added that “HTC has had difficulty in securing adequate camera components as it is no longer a tier-one customer.”
In consumer electronic markets, tensions arise because although buyers tend to favour new entrants, suppliers greatly prefer large incumbents due to the economies of scale involved.