News/Rumors

Browse through iTextEditors and decide over the ideal text editor for your iOS device

iTextEditors is the interactive spreadsheet good at finding the right app for writing and editing text on iOS. The App Store is loaded with text editors, thus, choosing one that gratifies your needs could be a troublesome and time killing task.

Brett Terpstra developed the iTextEditors project to spare iPhone and iPad users from headaches. The spreadsheet gives a complete feature comparison of 40 text editors, both free and charged, that aims “to help you find the most useful way to write, code or take notes for your personal needs” because “every editor is geared toward a slightly different purpose, with their own strengths and focus,” remarked Brett.

For the iTextEditors to be accomplished, a fierce web community participated with information that was compiled on an open Google spreadsheet. Therefore, if in need of a good text editor for iOS, just take a glance over the information provided by iTextEditors and decide over one.

Source: The Verge

Apple

The one-of-a-kind $10K iTunes Gift Card revealed by its fortunate owner

Apple’s 25 Billion App Countdown promotion started on February 17th and ended on March 2nd, when Chunli Fu of Quingdao, China, downloaded the lucky 25 billionth app. She has recently visited the Apple store in Beijing to claim her $10K iTunes Gift Card prize, which she has also revealed to the press.

This is not Apple’s first promotion. The Company has also celebrated 10 billion App Store downloads and 10 billion iTunes Music Store downloads. The reason for which Apple decide to celebrate also a milestone number of the downloads from the App Store was explained by  Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services:

 “When we launched the App Store less than four years ago, we never imagined that mobile apps would become the phenomenon they have, or that developers would create such an incredible selection of apps for iOS users.”

The app that Chunli downloaded was “Where’s My Water” from Disney and according to the Chinese press, she wasn’t a huge Apple fan and she didn’t even know about the 25 Billion App contest. She only owned her iPhone for about a month and simply downloaded a free app she needed.

Paradoxically, the media has given her the “Apple Girl from China” nickname though she wasn’t even trying to win the promotion, while millions of other Apple fans were desperately downloading apps hoping they will win the $10K gift card.

Anyway, I reckon that exhausting $10,000 only on apps, music and videos will turn Chunli Fu into Apple’s biggest fan.

Source: TNW, TNW

News/Rumors

You can never get enough of Angry Birds: get ready to step into its European parkland

Andgry Birds is conquering the world. People are experiencing the mobile game phenomenon from various perspectives, starting with iOS and Android apps and going on with toys, versions for PSP and Chrome, the board version of the game, Holiday themes for Valentine’s Day, Halloween and Easter, a cook book containing only egg dishes, the animated series of the game, which is aimed to be released this summer, and the popular Facebook page.

However, people never experienced the Angry Birds universe to the full of it, so Rovio Mobile thought of the outdoors world of the game and plans to open an Angry Birds theme park in the U.K. and other two parks in U.S. and China for the nearest future .

Angry Birds will be brought to life by authentic arcade games, sandpits, pitches, slides and many others Angry Birds-looking elements. Also the entire variety of characters, from the best to the worst, will be integrated in the plan of the park, which is aimed to be largest than Disneyland.

“The Angry Birds parks will be little lands inside already existing theme parks, similar to the character-themed sections Disney Theme Parks. But the company’s goal is to be much bigger than Disney,” said Rovio CMO, Peter Vesterbacka.

Anyway, I am still waiting for Rovio Mobile to merchandise a fuzzy Big Red Bird pillow.

Source: Mashable Tech

News/Rumors

Instagram widens its photo sharing area by joining Hipstamatic in a sharing partnership

Instagram will allow Hipstamatic exclusive access to its network. This way, photos taken with Hipstamatic will be ported directly to Instagram.

Both Instagram and Hipstamatic are popular iOS services declared by Apple as iPhones Apps of the Year in 2011 and 2010 respectively. Recently, also an Android version of Instagram has been announced.

By joining the most popular photo-sharing service that last week reached 27 million users with the most popular photography community of 4 million high-quality content creators, only good profits are to be harvested.

It is the first time when Instagram opens his platform API to third parties and Hipstamatic fully benefits of it:

“We’ve never been a social networking company, but we clearly benefit from social networks. So this will be the first app outside of Instagram that lets you into their network. That’s pretty cool for us,” said CEO Lucas Buick.

Once the partnership will be done, both the services and the users will benefit of a better social experience. People will be able to auto-tag a snap with the lens, film and flash used and add comments from Hipstamatic. Then the photo will appear on Instagram with the attribution Taken with Hipstamatic.

As for the services, the benefits are mutual. Hipstamatic will be promoted massively and also its revenue will increase because users will be directed to get the app if they don’t have it, which costs $1.99. On the other hand, Instagram will be provided with high-quality content from all the 4 million photographers from Hipstamatic and more significant, this partnership will help Instagram in its development as a social networking platform.

Source: Fast Company

iPad

New Retina Display-enabled apps

Last night, at 12:00 a.m. Wallmart started the selling of the new iPad while this morning the third generation tablet was expected also in other big cities all over the world. People rushed in line to make sure they will be the first to get the most expected iPad.

Apple anticipated that this tablet mania will extend also on the Apps area, so yesterday has updated the iTunes store with the “Great Apps for the New iPad” section, in order to make it easier for the new iPad owners to get the enhanced apps they need.

The Apps section include new released games, such as “Infinity Blade II,” “Real Racing 2 HD” and “Sky Gamblers: Air Supremacy,” “Tweetbot,” “Ratatap Drums,” “Evernote” and many others, all of them enhanced to match the Retina Display and to ensure the new way of experiencing technology that Apple had promised.

Source: 9to5 Mac

Apps Lists

Apps List: Music apps at the beat of your gadgets

Music springs out of feelings that are further perceived through it’s rithm by those who listen to it. The iTunes Store integrates a large variety  of music apps that brings the joy of sound into your device, either if it is an iPhone, iPad or iPod. The following list is contrived out of the most downloaded apps that we consider ‘a must’ for every music addict. Read more →

News/Rumors

Great mobile companies to implement new privacy policies standards for apps

Attorney General Kamala D. Harris, member of State of California Department of Justice, announced yesterday the Global Agreement to Strengthen Privacy Protections for Users of Mobile Applications. To this agreement are committed the leading mobile companies, starting with Apple, Google, HP and Microsoft and ending with Amazon and RIM.

Most of the mobile apps that collect personal information have no privacy policy integrated. This agreement’s aim is to improve the protection of the apps consumers. The press release offered to us a detailed approach of Attorney General Harris concerning this issue:

“Your personal privacy should not be the cost of using mobile apps, but all too often it is […] By ensuring that mobile apps have privacy policies, we create more transparency and give mobile users more informed control over who accesses their personal information and how it is used.”

This Privacy Protection Act not only that commits the mobile companies to new privacy rules but it commits them also to notify the developers about this rules and about their obligations. According to the release press, if developers prove to ignore one of these rules “they can be prosecuted under California’s Unfair Competition Law and/or False Advertising Law.”

Users will also be informed about their rights and tools to report the committing companies will be released for them.

Android and iOS developers exceed 50,000 and more than 1000,000 apps are available for download in the App Store and Android stores, and these estimates are expected to outstandingly grow in time. This might expose consumers to various privacy invasions.

In six months, General Attorney Harris will make sure that each of the mobile company committed to this agreement, which has a worldwide relevance, have respectfully complied with its rules.

Source: 9to5 Mac via State of California Department of Justice

News/Rumors

Create stories with Storify straight from your iPad

Storify is the online place where one can go and create a story from social media by expressing his subjective point of view in his own way. The main idea is to collect content from Twitter, Facebook and other social services and to turn it into an informative story.

So far, one was able of consuming such content from its tablet but now Storify comes with the iOS app that enables users also to use Storify and to create stories using the iPad. Apple’s tablet is already popular in big enterprises and also in schools for its high degree of functionality and for the smooth workflow that it offers, so using your fingers to storify shouldn’t be else than entertaining.

Storify for iPad has a fingertips-sensitive interface and drag-n-drop support so you can easy move updates from social network accounts to your story page. We can even pretend that one has the news at his fingertip. Once completed, the story can be easily published on the Web. Moreover, you can now have your Storify on the go, in case some bright idea hits you in the subway.

Though this app is free, its download might lead to the acquisition of some drawing apps for iPad.

Source: TechCrunch