This is just one specific case out of the many, many organizations and individuals publishing content on Apple's iBookstore, but it's an interesting call by Apple nevertheless. Seth Godin tried to publish a book of his through Apple's iBooks, but the content was rejected by Apple's system. Not because it was offensive in some way, but simply because it contained links to Amazon's booksore. These weren't even links to Godin's books -- they were simply links to reference books, but because they went out to a competing service, Apple pulled the plug.

Before anyone starts yelling about censorship, keep in mind that this is Apple's playground, and it can take its ball home whenever it wants, no matter how inane the reason. But this reason seems particularly inane -- Apple can't really be worried about one link in a ebook promoting a competitor's sales, right? Not to mention that the book in question was a hardcover copy, and unless I'm mistaken, wasn't even sold on Apple's iBooks store anyway.

Apple's staked a claim to be at the center of technology and creativity, and of course it's done plenty to cement a spot for itself there. But education and information are a key part of creativity, and if Apple is openly choosing to shut down certain purchases on its stores just for the petty reason of trying to keep one or two sales away from a (sort of) competitor, that's a mistake.

[via AppAdvice]

Apple rejects iBook with links to Amazon's store originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 29 Feb 2012 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Are you an iPhone owner with an unlimited plan? Are you being throttled by AT&T for using the data on your plan? If so, you may want to follow in the footsteps of Matt Spaccarelli who sued AT&T in small claims court. After a quick trial, the judge awarded him $850 in damages.

AT&T's contact terms prevent you from joining Spaccarelli and turning this into a class action lawsuit. Your best option is to hire a lawyer, go to small claims court and hope for the best. Mactech has an excellent primer to guide you through the process. It's not meant to be legal advice, just a friendly guide with tips like getting a copy of your contract, finding the right lawyer and so on.

In the end, you'd be doing this for the principle, not the money. The $850 that Mr Spaccarelli received would barely cover his legal fees, and if he wanted to cancel his contract with AT&T, well, that would be another $350. Even if you don't come away with some cash, you'll at least feel good about sticking it to the man.

Small claims action to combat AT&T data throttling originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 28 Feb 2012 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Have you ever kept a journal or diary? For writers, it's almost a given that you're going to keep a personal log of what you do during each day, how you feel, or interesting things that might create that prize-winning book some day. For others, it's a way to keep track of health issues, emotions, relationships, the growth of a child or the decline of an aged parent. Day One (US$9.99 for Mac, $1.99 for iOS) is a well-designed and implemented journal app for Mac OS X and iOS.

Day One for Mac

First, let me describe the Mac app. It's available through the Mac App Store and loads quickly. When launched, Day One recognizes whether or not you have Dropbox installed, and asks if you wish to use that service for syncing with the iOS app. Day One also supports iCloud for syncing -- it's easily enabled through the app preferences.

The next thing the app asks is whether or not you want to enable reminders and quick entry in the menu bar. Reminders will prompt you daily to update your journal, while quick entry makes writing an entry as easy as clicking an icon in the menu bar and typing your words.

The user interface of Day One for Mac is spare and functional. On the left side of the app window are five buttons -- one to add a new entry, one to show your entries in a list format, one to show your entries on a calendar, another to display "starred" or favorite entries, and a final button for setting reminders.

Clicking the add entry button opens a blank page. Since this app is Lion-friendly (it runs on OS X 10.6 and later), it can go full screen, although that simply puts the fixed-width app window into the center of your screen. That works great on an 11" MacBook Air; it looks absurd on a 27" iMac. I found that once I got the general idea of how the app worked, I just used the quick entry button on the menu bar to write my entries.

All entries are time and date stamped, of course, making Day One useful for situations where you might want to keep track of what you're working on -- a contemporaneous work log. Day One supports both Markdown and MultiMarkdown in the edit and read modes, so if you're familiar with Markdown it's simple to add emphasis and links to an entry while typing away.

Any entry can be emailed, exported as text or Markdown, or printed. There's a gem of a feature built into the Info button on each post -- a word and character count. That's great if you're trying to write Twitter-length entries, so let's hope that developer Paul Mayne adds Twitter support to the next version of Day One.

At the present time, Day One doesn't support the addition of images to journal entries. However, that is on the to-do list for the app along with tags and categories, encryption of entries, and location data if desired. I think the last would be incredibly powerful for doing a trip log, as travelers would be able to write entries marked with their current location, and embed photos. One other handy addition would be the capability to store multiple journals -- for instance, one for work, one for personal, one for a vacation, etc...

My biggest love of this app is the simple and clean interface. Anyone can be up and running in minutes, and Day One makes keeping a journal a pleasure instead of a chore. Now let's take a quick look at the iOS version.

Day One for iOS

The iOS version of Day One is universal, so you only need to purchase the app for iPhone or iPad to have it run on both devices. Paul Mayne has done an awesome job of optimizing the user interface for each device. On the iPhone, the entry method is simplistic and similar to the quick entry mode on the Mac. On iPad, there's the luxury of more room, especially in landscape mode.

Remember that Info button I talked about in the Mac version? On the iOS version, you just pull down a journal entry to reveal the current word and character count. And remember my comment about wanting to be able to send a short journal entry as a tweet? It's possible with the iOS version.

Syncs through Dropbox are almost instantaneous. I didn't try syncing through iCloud, although it should work in a very similar manner. Mayne does note that there are some performance issues with current versions of the app doing first-time syncs over iCloud with large journal libraries.

Conclusion

For keeping a private journal, I can think of no better solution at this time than Day One. Being able to make journal entries anywhere, anytime is a powerful way to keep the log of your life up to date. The similarity in the UI between the apps makes it easy to switch platforms at the drop of a hat, and the support for Markdown / MultiMarkdown provides a decent level of formatting.

While the app currently doesn't have the power of Mariner Software's single-platform MacJournal ($39.95), Day One is ultimately a much more user-oriented app that makes keeping a journal a pleasure. With the changes that developer Paul Mayne has planned for Day One, a great app will only get better.

Day One: A beautiful and functional cross-platform journaling app originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 27 Feb 2012 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Whether it's impending iPad refreshes, don't-be-evil cookie workarounds, or misrepresenting the Law of Large Numbers, there's one place you can go to talk about all of it: the weekly shmoozefest we all know as the TUAW Talkcast. Sore throat or no, I'll be there tonight for the full hour; hope you will, too. Tonight's special guest: iMore editor Rene Ritchie.

Your calls and questions help us make the show the best it can be. To participate on TalkShoe, you can use the browser-only client, the embedded Facebook app, or download the classic TalkShoe Pro Java client; however, for maximum fun, you should call in. For the web UI, just click the Talkshoe Web button on our profile page at 4 HI/7 PDT/10 pm EDT Sunday. To call in on regular phone or VoIP lines (yay for free cellphone weekend minutes!): dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077 -- during the call, you can request to talk by keying in *8.

If you've got a headset or microphone handy (you know those headphones that came with your iPhone?), you can connect via the free Zoiper, X-Lite or Blink SIP clients; and basic instructions are here. Talk to you tonight!

Talkcast reminder: Dreaming of a new iPad, 10pm ET tonight originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sun, 26 Feb 2012 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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JP Morgan's hardware analyst Mark Moskowitz has laid bare exactly how huge Apple has become lately, calling the company an actual "sector," not just a company any more. Of course, on paper, Apple is competing with other computer and device manufacturers like Dell and Samsung, but the numbers just don't make that comparison meaningful any more, says Moskowitz. Apple's stock is by far the largest single stock in the S&P 500 index, and when you compare the company's income to other tech sectors like Pharmaceuticals and Software as a whole, Apple's take actually lines up within the top 10.

I'll say that again, because it's important: Apple's income and operations actually compete with whole industries, not just the rest of the PC market. This isn't just the iPhone or the iPad being a new class of device, it's Apple as a whole company creating a tech sector of its own. That's pretty incredible, and if you haven't yet realized how big Apple has gotten in the past few years (as if the $98 billion in cash wasn't clear enough), maybe that's your wakeup call.

Now, this may all seem like financial types just making much ado about numbers, but it actually holds quite a bit of meaning, both for Apple and its competitors going forward. Apple's huge growth in the past few years will have lots of consequences, both for the company and the technology industry at large, and we still haven't figured out just what a lot of those consequences will be.

JP Morgan: Apple is a sector unto itself originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sat, 25 Feb 2012 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Do you like reading articles on the web, but hate all of the cruft that ends up making posts hard to read? Relax. Readability is going to be available for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch for free on March 1, 2012.

Readability is somewhat akin to Reader in Safari on the Mac, only much better. Both provide the capability to read web pages sans ads in an very text-centric format, but the similarity ends there. Readability adds extra functionality, including the ability to change text size to accommodate aging or tired eyes, swap fonts, tweet links to posts to your followers, and easily browse a pre-saved reading list.

Users of the popular Tweetbot apps for iPhone and iPad know just how handy Readability can be. The Twitter client includes a way to switch linked web pages to a Readability format for easy reading -- I've found that it's my preferred way to view websites on an iPhone.

For a tantalizing glimpse of Readability for iPad, be sure to watch the video below.

Readability: Coming to an iOS device near you on March 1 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 24 Feb 2012 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mac Rumors recently got its hands on a component that's allegedly the display from the forthcoming iPad 3. After putting it under a microscope, the site was able to confirm that the display has a 2048 x 1536 resolution, double the horizontal resolution and quadruple the number of pixels on the iPad 2's current 1024 x 768 LCD.

iFixit has been able to confirm Mac Rumors' findings; Mac Rumors actually mailed iFixit the same display and let them have a look at it. iFixit confirmed that the display has the same overall dimensions as the iPad 2's display (though the "iPad 3" display is 0.6 ounces lighter), and microscopic examination of the display confirmed a 2048 x 1536 resolution at 260 pixels per inch, far higher than the current iPad's 132 ppi.

In its examination iFixit confirmed that this display features a different display connector from the iPad 2 display, so even if you could secure one of these displays on the aftermarket, there doesn't appear to be any means of successfully hooking it up to an iPad 2 or original iPad. No surprises there.

iFixit suggests the new display's ppi might be too low to qualify it as a "Retina Display," while others have quite erroneously suggested that the iPad 2's current display is already Retina quality (in spite of Apple never classifying it that way and despite the current iPad's pixels being easily discernible even with my less than stellar vision). However, we did the math on this last year, when the iPad 2 was rumored to be getting a Retina upgrade, and the numbers tell a different story.

The only consistent definition Apple has ever given about the Retina Display is that individual pixels are indistinguishable from one another. This statement comes with several implied asterisks: pixels are indistinguishable for people with 20/20 vision when held at a reasonable distance. An Air Force bombardier holding an iPhone 4S four inches from his face is going to see those pixels easily, but his 87-year-old grandma isn't going to see them no matter how hard she looks.

Running the numbers shows that this display would meet the "Retina Display" requirements of indistinguishable individual pixels for someone with 20/20 vision if held at a distance from the eye of 13 inches or greater. I don't see too many people holding their iPads closer than that, so despite having a lower ppi density than the iPhone 4S display, the "iPad 3" display easily meets Apple's somewhat fuzzy Retina Display qualifications.

Standard caveats apply: the iPad 3 hasn't even launched yet, so this is all speculative. However, it's worth noting that the iPhone 4's display leaked through the same channel -- aftermarket component resellers -- months before its debut in summer 2010.

iFixit examines alleged iPad 3 display, confirms doubled resolution originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 23 Feb 2012 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Even a couple of months after the fact, I have to say that iFrogz' Boost speaker was one of the most interesting things I saw at CES this year. It's a little box speaker that works, more or less, like magic. There are no wires or hookups necessary. All you do is set the Boost speaker down, put your iPhone right on top of it as seen above, and then the speaker somehow amplifies your iPhone. It's not super loud, but it's more than enough for just a desk speaker, or maybe something small in the bedroom.

As far as I can tell, it simply works by "listening in" to whatever is coming out of your iPhone's speaker with a really close-up microphone, and then just amplifying that audio as best it can (the device is powered with a few batteries, so that would make sense, if it's making more sound on its own). What's most surprising about all of this, however, is how exact the unit must be -- I moved the iPhone around quite a bit on the unit, and it really only works if the iPhone is sitting in exactly the right place, which means that mic, if that's indeed what's happening, must be very finely tuned.

At any rate, the Boost is an interesting device -- there are quite a few speakers out there, but I haven't seen anything like this, that doesn't require any wires or hookups at all (aside from the old school megaphone style amplifiers, I mean). The Boost is available for $39.99, and if you have a place to use it, it might be worth picking up.

iFrogz' Boost speaker out now originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 22 Feb 2012 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In case you haven't seen it yet, the fourth episode of Kirby Ferguson's "Everything is a Remix" series went live in mid-February on Ferguson's site. As in the previous three episodes in the series, Ferguson examines modern attitudes toward "intellectual property" and how these attitudes rather counterintuitively stifle creativity rather than fostering it.

Part 4 of "Everything is a Remix" deals largely with the contentious subject of software patents, a subject we've covered many times here at TUAW. According to Ferguson, 62 percent of all patent lawsuits are now over software patents, and he estimates the total wealth "lost" (read: siphoned off from "infringing" companies and individuals towards patent holders and their lawyers) at half a trillion dollars.

Apple has found itself on both sides of the software patent trench warfare, as both target and aggressor. Ferguson makes it pretty obvious that Apple is just as guilty of hypocrisy as everyone else when it comes to software patents; he points out that Steve Jobs from 1996 proudly stated "We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas," while Steve Jobs from 2010 said he was going to "destroy Android, because it's a stolen product" and was "willing to go thermonuclear war" on Google and its allegedly copycat product.

As Ferguson points out, "When we copy, we justify it. When others copy, we vilify it. Most of us have no problem with copying as long as we're the ones doing it."

The question remains, however, where to draw the line between copying as a necessary portion of innovation and copying as an admission of a failure to innovate. Some might say all Samsung has done with its many riffs on Apple's products is "remix" the iPad and iPhone, but even after viewing Ferguson's series I'm not wholly convinced of that.

On the other hand, Apple itself has long been accused of "copying" innovations at Xerox PARC for the first Mac OS -- something Ferguson himself addressed in an earlier episode of his series -- so the demarcation between "remix" and "shameless knockoff" isn't always easy to find.

Ferguson's entire series is very well put together, and is itself only possible because of the very "remixing" he discusses. If you haven't caught the earlier episodes, I'd highly recommend setting aside an hour to watch all four parts back-to-back.

'Everything is a Remix' examines software patents originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 21 Feb 2012 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Each app in the iOS App Store must go through Apple's notorious approval process. Previously known for its heavy ban hammer, Apple is now earning a reputation for being lax and letting a myriad of cloned and counterfeit apps into the App Store. According to reports from Develop and Ars Technica, the latest titles to raise suspicion are a pair of Pokémon apps, one from developer Jonathan Milanovic and another from House of Anime.

In both cases, the apps are present in the iOS App Store in the game category and have gotten the attention of customers. One app, Pokémon Pocket Edition by Milanovic, was not even a game, but merely a gallery of Pokémon photos. Customers were understandably angry when they realized they paid $5 for a bunch of images. After the Develop article was published, Milanovic pulled the app because people misunderstood what they were buying. He told Develop, "I did note that it was only a gallery, and supported this by listing the game in 'book' section on the App Store."

The other app, House of Anime's Yellow Pokémon, debuted this weekend and climbed as high as No. 3 on the App Store's paid apps chart. It, too, is the recipient of many stinging comments, criticizing the app because its doesn't work. As Ars Technica points out, this game uses screenshots and characters taken directly from Nintendo's Pokémon series. It's not just inspired by Pokémon, it's a blatant ripoff of Nintendo's popular franchise.

These titles slipped through Apple's review process because Apple apparently relies on the copyright owners to police the app store for infringing titles. Apple looks for technical issues with apps, but not copyright infringement. When you think about it, the company is in a similar position as YouTube, which also struggles with users who upload infringing content. Just like YouTube, the app store is so big, that Apple can't adequately police existing and incoming titles.

Until Apple develops a tool or improves it manual method to scan submissions for infringement, it will be the responsibility of developers and copyright holders to keep a watchful eye for clones and ripoff titles. Hopefully, when a copyright owner brings a knockoff app to Apple's attention, Apple will step up its policing and remove the title promptly.

Counterfeit Pokemon apps sneak into App Store originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 20 Feb 2012 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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