Blog Archives
iOS 5.1.1 released: Do not upgrade if you jailbreak your device
Apple has just released a new version of iOS for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. Don’ t update if you jailbreak your device.
Changes are as follows:
This update contains improvements and bug fixes, including:
• Improves reliability of using HDR option for photos taken using the Lock Screen shortcut
• Addresses bugs that could prevent the new iPad from switching between 2G and 3G networks
• Fixes bugs that affected AirPlay video playback in some circumstances
• Improved reliability for syncing Safari bookmarks and Reading List
• Fixes an issue where ‘Unable to purchase’ alert could be displayed after successful purchase
Apple: The new AT&T
Steve Jobs last gift to technology buffs may not be just a new iPhone or SmarTV. Apple’s next market maybe to take on carriers. So look out AT&T and Verizon Wireless. It makes perfect sense and something that Google has been working on for a while. Apple as a direct mobile service provider ensures that the network can not be to blame for shabby service. Apple has somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 million credit cards on file for iTunes users. That means they can just charge your iTunes account for the monthly phone bill.
Apple has a network architecture technology that will help it make the jump. They have had a patent-pending on the technology since 2006. If Apple does have a very large piggy bank to help with the subsidies carriers pay to keep iPhone pricing affordable. As much as I love the iPhone, I do not think I nor anyone else but the most die hard Apple Fanboy would pay upwards of $700 for a phone.
Would Apple bite the hand that feeds it? Apple has never been one to care about anything other than a good product. They don’t about their customers wants only what Apple thinks they need. So, I think Apple will do this just as soon as their patent gets approved.
Viva iTunes: Apple opens iTunes store in Brazil & Latin America
Apple fresh off a new iTunes update last night has just announced, via a press release that it’s launching the iTunes Store in Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela. Also those lucky Brazilians will have iTunes Match to play with. Brazil is now the only country outside the USA to have the service.
The thing I like most about Apple is that when they announce something it’s launched right away. iTunes Store is open right now and iTunes Match is available today if you live in Brazil. The cost remains $24.99 a year.
Brazil and Latin American now have a wide open library music from all four major labels. If you live in Brazil, you also get Movies in your iTunes store.
Apple Press Release:
SAO PAULO, Brazil—December 13, 2011—Apple® today announced the launch of the iTunes Store® in Brazil (www.itunes.com/brazil) with an incredible selection of Brazilian and international music from all the major labels and thousands of independent labels. Launching with a catalog of over 20 million songs, the iTunes Store in Brazil features local artists including Ivete Sangalo, Marisa Monte and the digital debut of Roberto Carlos’ catalog, available to purchase and download along with a wide range of international artists including the Beatles, Rihanna, Coldplay and thousands more. With most songs priced at 99 cents and most albums at $9.99, the iTunes Store in Brazil is the best way for iPad®, iPhone®, iPod®, Mac® and PC users to legally discover, purchase and download music online.
The iTunes Store in Brazil offers over a thousand movies to rent or purchase, with many in stunning HD, from major studios including 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Universal Pictures, The Walt Disney Studios and Warner Bros. Pictures. The iTunes Store in Brazil now joins the revolutionary App Store™, which offers more than 500,000 apps to consumers in 123 countries, reaching hundreds of millions of iPad, iPhone and iPod touch® users around the world. Customers have downloaded more than 18 billion apps to date.
Apple is also bringing the iTunes Store to 15 additional Latin American countries including Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela.
The iTunes Store in Brazil and Latin America offer music from major labels EMI Music, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music, and thousands of independent labels. All music on iTunes® comes in iTunes Plus®, Apple’s DRM-free format with high-quality 256 kbps AAC encoding for audio quality virtually indistinguishable from the original recordings.
iTunes in the Cloud lets you download your previously purchased iTunes music to all your iOS devices at no additional cost, and new music purchases can be downloaded automatically to all your devices. In addition, music not purchased from iTunes can gain the same benefits by using iTunes Match℠, a new service that upgrades your music to iTunes Plus when matched to the over 20 million songs in the iTunes Store catalog. iTunes in the Cloud is available today for free in Brazil and Latin America and iTunes Match is available today for a $24.99 annual fee in Brazil.
Pricing & Availability
iTunes 10.5.1 for Mac and Windows includes the iTunes Store and is available as a free download from (www.itunes.com/brazil). iTunes Store purchases require a valid credit card with a billing address in country.
Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced iPad 2 which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.
Like this:
iTunes gets minor update
Apple released a very minor update to iTunes. Version 10.5.2 of iTunes is available through software update along with Apple’s iTunes download page. The says that iTunes 10.5.2 includes several improvements for iTunes Match and fixes the audio distortion problem when playing or importing certain CD’s.
iTunes Match & iTunes 10.5.1 Beta 3
Apple has released iTunes 10.5.1 to developers. Apple says, “iTunes 10.5.1 beta 3 includes a number of important stability and performance improvements for iTunes Match, and is a required update for all subscribers to iTunes Match beta.”
I am happy that the update is being released but I’m getting tired of having to upload my music each time. iTunes Match libraries are wiped to prepare for each launch of iTunes Match beta or not. It’s been less than two weeks since the release of the last beta; iTunes 10.5.1 beta 2.
Once the service goes live to the public, users who pay US$24.99 per year will have access to all of their music, anywhere, and anytime. It’s worth the price, although they need a search feature ASAP.
App Review: Book Creator for iPad
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The app Book Creator for iPad comes highly recommend by our readers. So we thought it would be a good idea to get a hold of the developer for a little 1 on 1. For those that have not heard about this great app; 1st what? 2nd we will explain.
Book Creator for iPad is the simple way to create your own beautiful iBooks, right on the iPad. Read them in iBooks, send them to your friends, or submit them to the iBookstore. Ideal for children’s picture books, photo books, art books, cook books, manuals, textbooks, and the list goes on.
FEATURES
* Quickly add pictures from the Photos app, or grab them from the web, then move and resize them with your fingers.
* Edit text using the onscreen keyboard, and apply rich formatting to make it look great.
* Choose from all of the iPad’s fonts – over 50 to use.
* Layout your book exactly as you want it with guidelines and snap positioning.
* A quick tap and you’re reading your book in iBooks!
* Send your books to your friends over email, or sync using Dropbox.
* With your books created using the international ePub standard you know they will be readable now and in the future.
* Full support for iBooks’ fixed layout format, including double page images.
The developer and one man team over at Red Jumper Studio is the very talented Dan Amos. Here is what he had to say about the app and it’s future.
Where did the idea for the app come from?
From a trip to the London Book Fair with my wife, a YA novelist. We were struck at still have prohibitively expensive and complex it is to produce a good quality e-book.
How many developers worked on the app?
Just myself.
Will the app be on other platforms?
Perhaps Amazon’s tablet – let’s see when it arrives!
What are the future plans for the app?
I’ve had fantastic feedback from users of the app and I have a long list of requests.
Next up will be adding support for audio and video to your iBooks, along with rounding out the text and image formatting tools.
What sets your app apart from the others out there?
It’s the only tool that enables you to create fixed layout iBooks, and with its simple and intuitive interface anyone can do it!
Company Questions: How did the company come together?
Red Jumper Studio was started after leaving my role at Nokia as a Product Manager for their digital music service and the N9 device. For me this is a great opportunity to work in a fast lean way, involving my customers directly in the product’s future.
How many developers do you have not counting contracted sources?
Just myself.
What can we expect next from your talented team?
Making Book Creator the best app it can be!
Pro: Book Creator for iPad is the simple way to create your own beautiful iBooks, right on the iPad. There could not be any easier way to self publish a book at the moment.
Con: The only con I have is crashes sometimes when you try to open a created book in iBooks. It seems to be an issue with iOS 5. There was no issue with my other iOS 4 iPad 2. I am sure this will be fixed by the release of iOS 5 to the public.
Cost: $6.99
Aye/Nay: This is a Aye. This is a great program. One of those that make you wonder “why did I not think of this?” $7 worth it.
iTunes Link: Book Creator for iPad
Facebook For iPhone Updated; Hidden iPad code Removed
Facebook has released a new version of their iPhone app.
Facebook 3.5 brings some new features such as the ability to tag friends and places in photos and finally the ability to add privacy controls on posts. Facebook has fixed a number of annoying bugs and improved the overall performance and stability of the iPhone app.
Facebook app v3.5:
[ Made it easier to share with who you want - Added the ability to tag friends and places in posts - Added the ability to share external links from a web view - Added new design for Profile and Group Walls - Improved the sharing tool to add privacy controls on posts and match your settings on the web site
Improvements and bug fixes: - Improved Notifications speed - Fixed a number of Chat bugs - Made it easier to select filters in News Feed - Fixed a bug with the Notifications bar disappearing - Fixed a number of Photos bugs - Improved performance and stability overall ]
This is not however the Facebook’s iPad app. In fact Facebook has gone out of it’s way to removed the iPad app code from the latest version. That means if you update to this new version. The jailbreak tweak FaceForward to enable the Facebook for iPad app won’t work. So I would skip updating the app on your iPad for now.
ERPLY’s enters mobile POS market with NFC reader, all set to take on Square
Square has a new competitor in the mobile payment field. ERPLY’s new on the field but they are not playing like an expansion team. First the equipment seems to have been planed out from the start to work well with the iPad. Rather than a universal adapter like the Square reader; ERPLY’s new credit card reader attached to an iPad’s charging port and does both NFC and regular card payments.
The ERPLY card reader encrypts a user’s credit card information before sending it to ERPLY’s system. The point-of-sale and inventory management software is free on iTunes. There is one part of this system that will hold some back from jumping ship to ERPLY; the card reader is $50. They do however have a very low transaction fee of 1.9%
The inventory system gives you the ability to monitor transactions and stock flows in real time. Both will automatically send a receipt to consumers via text or e-mail. There is no iPhone version of the reader or app but one is promised soon.
Press Release:
ERPLY Introduces Portable Credit Card Reader for Retailers to Securely Process Payments on Mobile Handheld Devices
Comprehensive POS Solution Now Includes a Low-‐Fee, Convenient Card Processing Technology for On-‐the-‐Go Sales & Inventory Management
New York, NY – August 23, 2011 – ERPLY, the leading provider of cloud-‐based mobile, laptop, and desktop POS and retail inventory management solutions, today announced the ERPLY mobile credit card reader for handheld mobile devices to deliver secure, fast and convenient payments for businesses large and small. The new credit card device connects to an iPad or iPhone and transmits a customer’s encrypted credit card data to the ERPLY point-‐of sale software and inventory management software suite to process payments. This gives retailers the ability to view real-‐time data and inventory analytics through the ERPLY inventory management system.
The ERPLY credit card reader is priced at $50 with a 1.9% transaction fee that is considerably less than fees charged by competing technologies offered by Square and Verifone.
Providing Options for Consumers & Retailers
In today’s retail environment, customers and retailers are faced with a confusing array of mobile payment options including Near Field Communications (NFC), digital wallets and carrier billing as well as traditional credit cards and cash. Customers prefer to pay via differing methods and savvy retailers need to be ready. The ERPLY reader is designed to meet the demands of customers and retailers today and in the future, since it is enabled for traditional credit card processing as well as the new NFC payment options just coming to market.
“With our mobile credit card reader, we are providing retailers with the full range of technology options they will need to accept and process payments and make real-‐time decisions that affect their business,” said Kris Hiiemaa, CEO, ERPLY. “As technology changes, we are giving consumers the ability to pay for items the way they want to, whether it is with cash, credit cards or with NFC technologies in phones. The ERPLY inventory management backend provides the foundation for our comprehensive POS solution, so retailers are ready for wherever the market may take us.”

Changing Landscape of POS Technologies
In its recent market study “Next Generation Point of Sale Systems and Retail Technology,” ABI Research forecasts that growth in this market will continue for the foreseeable future as retailers invest in the latest technology. ABI Research anticipates retail technology spending will grow to nearly $21 billion in 2014, from $14.8 billion in 2009.
With the ERPLY reader, a retailer simply attaches the device to an iPad or iPhone’s charging port and this communicates with the ERPLY POS software to process the transaction and record the sale in inventory. The credit card information is encrypted inside the device, ensuring that the transaction is safe and secure. A sales person can be assisting a customer with information about a camera, for example, use the ERPLY inventory software to check on inventory, go to the storeroom and collect a particular model, and use the same iPad with the credit card reader to process the customer’s credit card right there on the store sales floor. The customer is then sent an email or text message receipt.
The ERPLY mobile credit card reader is available now for the iPad and will be available within three months for the iPhone. The ERPLY reader works exclusively with the ERPLY POS and inventory management solution.
With prices starting at only $70 per month, over 20,000 retailers, ranging from Fortune 500 corporations to SMBs, currently use ERPLY’s cloud-‐based POS and inventory management software.
Watch The Throne: Jay-Z & Kaye West (Yes, there’s a tech story somewhere in there)
This week Jay-Z and Kanye West unveiled their long-awaited collaboration, Watch the Throne. Why is this on the front page of a tech heavy blog? The Watch The Throne rappers debuted around the world exclusively on Apple’s iTunes. The album’s timing and title are perfect when referring to Jay-Z. He not only topped Forbes list as hip-hop’s top earner with $37 million in the past 12 months but it’s his fourth time doing so in the last five years.
Many other artist have released exclusives on iTunes. What makes Jay-Z different? Well he sees technology as a good bet into more markets and just good business. This is not Jay-Z’s jump into the tech world as an media. He tried to buy Comcast’s G4 with Sean Combs and film executive Harvey Weinstein in 2007. That did not work out but a deal with Adult Swim seems to have worked. It has been confirmed by sources at Turner Broadcasting, Cartoon Network’s parent company.
What will interesting is to see if Jay-Z dives deeper into other forms of media and technology. He already has the clubs (40/40), the sports team (NY Nets), the record label (RocNation) and the clothing company (Rocawear). The only thing missing is movies and TV. With the Turner deal TV can somewhat be checked off. Maybe he could do a Game of Thrones ad campaign tie in or a MacBook Air RocNation limited edition. Wait never mind Apple does not do such things. Maybe HP.
The point is Jay-Z has ruled over rap and Hip Hop in general that the next uncharted plain is technology. He may indirectly set the standard for all who follow. Every artist now seems to have plans to own a record company or have a side business. For better or worse he has educated artist on the possibilities and benefits of being an entrepreneur. In the grand scheme of things most tech companies are started out by people going against the norm. See Apple “Think Different”
