Apple has just been granted eleven patents in China on the iPhone 4, according to Patently Apple, and there are some interesting potential consequences for future iPhone design, the site says.

The eleven patents are each for slightly varying designs which could, say Patently Apple, help strengthen rumors that the next iPhone will have a metal back. One patent emphasizes the iPhone 4's stainless steel band, for example, while others cover the glass cover, button positions, and more.

This means that if the next iPhone does sport a metal back, any new patents would only have to be updated for the new materials, rather than be redone for the whole new piece of hardware. That saves time and money later on, and right now it means that Apple is ready to make changes to the iPhone's design if needed.

The patents were filed in China late last year, and only finally granted this past week.

China grants Apple eleven patents covering iPhone 4 originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 21 Mar 2011 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Penguin Slider is a game (US $1.99 for the iPad and $0.99 for the iPhone and iPod touch) created by Mark Thompson and Ashley Hunter, two 17 year old students at The Wallace High School, a 1200 student Co-educational Grammar school in Lisburn Northern Ireland, near Belfast. They are shown above with their proud past-principal Deborah O' Hare. Mark and Ashley were guided by their ICT teacher David Cleland, but did the work themselves both in and out of school over a three-month period. All proceeds from the game are going into the students' college funds. Mark hopes to be an architect, while Ashley (pictured on the right) would like to be an ICT teacher later in life. I had a chance to interview the teacher and his two students via email and everyone is very proud of the students' accomplishment.

The project was completely driven by the kids, who pulled skills from their ICT class as well as their Moving Image Arts and Art classes. The hardest part of coming up with the game was getting the idea, "Having a winning idea is the challenge," they said. "We just wish that we came up with Angry Birds." Doesn't everyone? Angry Birds and Cut the Rope both provided some inspiration for Penguin Slider -- they're both "puzzling, addictive and challenging games titles that want you coming back for more." The game took three months to from idea to completion and both versions were accepted by the App Store on the first submission which made them both quite happy. Ashley, who is a self-taught programmer in C#, Java, Objective C, VBA and HTML, took care of the coding, while Mark looked after the design and the artwork.

When done, the game caused quite a buzz at their school, as "all pupils bought the game and then compared scores and challenges." I was told that people of all ages have fun with the game, which starts out simply but gets quite difficult over the 36 levels, as you guide your penguin across ice-fields to his destination. Future versions of the title will add "additional levels, features and something very special."

A free version will be popping up in the App Store soon, so I'd advise you to take a look and if it sparks your fancy, help send two very bright Irish kids to college.

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Two 17-year old Irish students create Penguin Slider! for iOS originally appeared on TUAW on Sun, 20 Mar 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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David Chartier once served as a blogger & editor right here on TUAW (amongst other Weblogs, Inc. properties), and he's now an Associate Editor at Macworld. We caught up with him at Macworld Expo where our own Kelly Guimont asked him his "favorite" 3 iPhone apps.

The apps:

OmniFocus

Tumblr

Camera+

My top 3 apps: David Chartier originally appeared on TUAW on Sat, 19 Mar 2011 21:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The web performance enhancements included in Apple's latest mobile operating system, iOS 4.3, are exclusively available to the mobile Safari web browser, an Apple spokesperson has confirmed. The optimizations, which double JavaScript performance in Mobile Safari, are not available to the underlying web view framework that powers the embedded browsers in other apps.

"The embedded web viewer does not take advantage of Safari's web performance optimizations," Trudy Muller, a spokesperson for Apple, told The Register.

Apple's statement comes as a response to controversy started earlier this week when developers first recognized the notable performance gap between mobile Safari and the embedded web views in their own applications. The debate deepened yesterday when Blaze Software released the results of a study that implied Android loaded web pages 52% faster than the iPhone 4. Apple refuted Blaze's results, citing the differences between Safari and the embedded web viewer.

Many developers voiced concerns about Apple's decision to exclude third party apps from taking advantage of the Nitro JavaScript engine included in iOS 4.3. One anonymous developer suggested Apple purposefully omitted the enhancements to subtly degrade the web experience in non-Apple browsers and web apps launched from the home screen. "Apple is basically using subtle defects to make web apps appear to be low quality - even when they claim HTML5 is a fully supported platform," the developer claimed in The Register.

Matt Asay, vice president of business development for Strobe, indicated that Apple filed the performance gap as a bug but marked it "not to be fixed by exec order." On Twitter, Asay called the scenario "slimy" and suggested it's partly a tactic for convincing developers to focus on the development of native apps.

The real reasons for the performance gap may not be so sordid. Ars Technica observes the Nitro JavaScript engine uses a technique called "just-in-time [JIT] compilation" to transform dynamic JavaScript code into machine code optimized for the ARM processor architecture. Nitro's ability to dynamically generate and execute code enables it to process JavaScript much faster than its predecessors. Unfortunately, for security reasons, other applications developed for iOS aren't typically granted permission to execute dynamically generated native code. Miguel de Icaza, a lead developer for both GNOME and Mono, said he suspects the issues are legitimate technical problems and not a conspiracy.

"It seems that people are attributing to malice what can easily be explained by history - iOS has never allowed user code to generate code on demand, and this has for years prevented JIT compilation from taking place," Icaza told Ars Technica. "Third parties have never been able to get access to this - not Mono, not Java, not Lua, not JavaScript, or any other runtime, compiler, or library that generates native code dynamically."

As a result, applications that use the UIWebView framework, including web apps launched from the home screen, will not enjoy the performance optimizations available to Apple's mobile Safari web browser. Despite the technical challenges in adapting Nitro to work safely within the UIWebView framework , developers like Icaza are optimistic Apple will enable the new JavaScript engine for apps with embedded web views. "Since this is the first OS release with Nitro on the Mobile Safari browser, it is probably safe to assume that this is merely a bug or limitation," he said.

Is this a conspiracy worth dubbing "browser-gate," or simply a small speed bump in this tale of two JavaScript rendering engines? Please use the comments below to discuss.

[via The Mac Observer]

Apple confirms some WebKit optimizations unavailable to iOS Apps originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 18 Mar 2011 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The official Pingdom blog did a little research into Mac market share around the world according to Statcounter (all based on browser visits to a pretty solid sample of three million websites), and it turns out that Switzerland is the most Mac country in the world. OS X has a 17.61% market share there, making it the country with the highest share on the planet. We've actually heard this before -- the Macworld Expo has been to Switzerland before, and there are a number of terrific Apple Stores in that country as well. The Swiss really love their quality computers, apparently.

Luxembourg follows next on the list, and the United States comes in at third with 15.36% Mac share. The United Kingdom, strangely, didn't make it into the top ten of the list at all, and the Mac share in Asia, where Apple is making big pushes lately, is only 1.61%. Granted, one percent of a couple billion computers is still a lot, but you'd expect that to grow over the next few years.

The least Mac-savvy region in the entire world? South America, where Mac OS X, according to these numbers, claims only a 1.08% market share. Looks like more of our friends to the south will have to look into just how enjoyable using a Mac can be.

[via 9to5Mac]

Switzerland leads in Mac market share around the world originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 17 Mar 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Earlier this week, Time Warner Cable released its new iPad app which allowed users to watch live TV on the device, if they met certain key conditions. The app only works when connected to residential networks connected to TWC's RoadRunner cable modem ISP service, or the parallel Earthlink service delivered by TWC, and users have to subscribe to a base tier of cable TV service as well.

Who knew live TV would be so popular? Apparently the service has already been overwhelmed with demand. Customers couldn't log in yesterday due to the drain on the authentication servers, and Time Warner has had to cut back the number of channels available to watch from 30 to just 15. Keep in mind this is a huge amount of demand from a relatively small audience covered by the restrictions above. But apparently that was enough -- even with just those users, the service was completely overrun.

That hasn't stopped Time Warner from promising improvements, however -- the company still says it plans to add even more than the 30 channels that were supposed to be available at launch, and the service is expected to turn into a Slingbox-style solution, with Time Warner subscribers able to watch television from anywhere. Those days may be a little while off yet, though. Obviously, any setup like that will clearly require a large and dedicated infrastructure to run well.

Time Warner's iPad TV service cut back due to overwhelming demand originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 16 Mar 2011 19:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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After a tour of the SXSW trade show floor, here are some of the companies we'll be profiling in the coming weeks. Of course, there's always a mix of companies at SXSW: some film, some music, many web services -- but far fewer social media companies than last year.

We've covered RedLaser and LaCie in the past, and while LaCie has new products (more hard drives, surprise!) and RedLaser has gone local, I'm going to focus on a few mobile apps and accessories you might not have heard of yet.

On the hardware front, there's a portable second monitor solution called Cinq on display. The Cinq attaches to your laptop screen with a sort of clamp, and only needs a USB port to get video and power. It supports 1280x720 resolution and weighs a mere 15 oz. For a 10.1" secondary screen, that's not bad. I felt the backlight was a bit weak, but as someone who often enjoys working with two screens, it might be a portable solution for frequent travelers. Then again, at $249 (and not available until a few months from now), it won't be cheap.

Perhaps the most intriguing and useful product I saw was from a company launched a couple of weeks ago. LifeProof enters a shockingly small market of durable, water-and-dirt-proof iPhone cases. Nowhere near as bulky as similar offerings from OtterBox and Griffin, the LifeProof case is shockproof (tested to 2 meters), waterproof down to 6 feet and keeps sand, mud and grit away. Based on the demo units sealed in with various elements, and my examination of the case, I would say this is an excellent "every day" use case for people who work outside. It also looks ideal if you climb or mountain bike or swim regularly. Shipping in a few weeks, the LifeProof case will cost $69.95.

I also had a quick chat with one of the three indie developers of TapCity, what looks to be a fun game coming soon on the App Store. You're able to "take over" locations, earn "rent" as people check in, or conduct battles for locations -- all with cute cartoon graphics of real places around you. No word on how many cities will be supported at launch, but we'll try to get a look at it soon.

Continue reading Companies to watch, from the SXSW trade show floor

Companies to watch, from the SXSW trade show floor originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 15 Mar 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It's been a while since we've seen an iDevice embedded in a vehicle, but the wait was worth it -- the guys at SoundMan Car Audio have placed a brand new iPad 2 in the dashboard of a new Ford truck, and it's pretty glorious. You can see the whole process after the break -- they set up the dashboard first, and then after bringing home the iPad itself, slide it in and install the whole thing.

It's pretty groovy. They can browse Maps, of course, do a FaceTime call (one hopes that they don't try it in motion), and even run Pandora straight from the iPad. There's a dock connector hooked up to the car for charging while driving, and while it doesn't seem like they have audio connected, that seems easy enough to do as well (you could go through the dock connector or just use the headphone jack out).

If you want them to do the same thing to your car, the YouTube page says it would run about $800-$900 to push the dashboard mod in (which doesn't include the iPad 2 itself). So, not cheap, but having a place to store and use your iPad in the car like that just might be worth it.

Continue reading iPad 2 already installed in Ford F-150 truck

iPad 2 already installed in Ford F-150 truck originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 14 Mar 2011 20:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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One of the joys of photography with the iPhone is that there are a huge number of apps for the platform that let you work with your photos to apply cropping, add filters and effects, and then share those photos with others. Sure, we have apps like iPhoto and Photoshop Elements, but to me they're not really in the same ballpark as the iPhone apps when it comes to quickly editing a photo.

Flare is a new Mac app (US$19.95, now on sale for $9.99) from The Iconfactory and ARTIS Software that brings drag, drop, and click editing to photos much in the manner that the current iPhone photo apps do. Available in the Mac App Store, Flare is easy enough for photo newbies to use, yet powerful enough that professional photographers will want to have it in their kit of goodies.

After launching the app for the first time, you're greeted with a simple startup screen with three choices;"Drag a photo here to get started with Flare," "Read the User's Guide," or "View a Tutorial." I think most people will do what I did -- I just dragged a photo to the box in the startup screen and started playing with the app to see what it can do. After that, I clicked the User's Guide button to get more details, which took me to a very complete online explanation of what each and every effect, filter, and process does to your photograph.

Continue reading Flare from The Iconfactory: Awesome photo editing app for Mac

Flare from The Iconfactory: Awesome photo editing app for Mac originally appeared on TUAW on Sun, 13 Mar 2011 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Following the disaster caused by the magnitude 8.9 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, Apple has posted a donation page on iTunes where you can use your iTunes account to make a secure donation to the American Red Cross and its Japanese relief fund.

100% of donations made through iTunes go to the American Red Cross; unlike every other corner of iTunes, Apple is taking no percentage of the profits from these donations whatsoever. Steve Jobs recently said that via the iTunes Store, Apple may have the largest credit card database of any online retailer, so rigging up a donation page on the iTunes Store seems like a good way to raise the potential for donations to the Red Cross and its relief efforts in Japan.

If you don't have an iTunes account or would rather donate directly, our own Rick Martin (currently in Tokyo) has put together a list of donation sites.

[via 9to5Mac]

Apple now accepts donations to Red Cross Japan relief fund via iTunes originally appeared on TUAW on Sun, 13 Mar 2011 00:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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