One of the advantages of paying Apple £59 a year to be an iOS developer is that when Apple announce a new version of iOS (like they did at WWDC a couple of weeks ago with version 5 of the OS), you get early access to the new version. Generally months before it is released to the general public. The main reason that Apple does this is so that developers can make sure their apps work correctly under the new version of the OS, and also take advantage of any new features in their apps, from day one of the general release.
But there are one or two drawbacks of being an early adopter.
The first is that some apps may become unstable or just not work. It's not the apps fault, it's mine for using the new version, and all I can do is wait for the developer to update their app. Which in the main will be when the new OS gets released to the public. But having said that I did see my first iOS 5 bug fix release for an app today.
The second drawback is not being able to talk about all the new goodness in the new version. Well I could but I would be breaking an NDA. You see Apple developers are not allowed to talk about new features because they have signed an NDA. To be fare I can't remember when I signed it, it was either when I signed up as an iOS developer, or it could be when I downloaded the new release.
I think I can talk about the features mentioned in the keynote at WWDC, but there have been one or two little touches I have come across I would love to mention but I can't.
All I can say is that I think when you get your hands on the new version of iOS you will love it as much as I do.
- Posted using BlogPress from my zx81
Tuesday, 21 June 2011
Monday, 30 May 2011
An iPhone/iPad Audio App Wish
I just got the iRig Recorder app for the iPhone, it's as the name suggests an app that records audio. iRig Recorder is aimed at the spoken word (IK Multimedia have other apps aimed at vocals and instruments). Like a lot of apps in the app store there is a free and a paid for version (£2.99).
But I don't want to turn this into a review of the app, I want to speak about the export options. iRig Recorder will allow me to export my recordings via email, iTunes File Sharing, Wi-fi, FTP upload and SoundCloud.
FiRe another iPhone recording app allows me to export using FTP, SoundCloud or Wi-fi. WavePad allows me to export via FTP and email. And finally GarageBand allows me to export via email or iTunes.
Have you noticed something missing from these apps export options? Yep why can't I export to DropBox?
Now I don't expect GarageBand to support DropBox, well it is Apple, and they have their own versions, sadly not available in GarageBand.
It would be nice if these sound recording app developers would offer DropBox. It's not as if adding support for it would cost them anything, the api is free after all.
What would be nice is if something like WavePad had DropBox support for importing files as well. How bloody useful would that be? Very, imagine recording with something like FiRe or iRig Recorder, process briefly in app, export to DropBox and then import into WavePad for editing. That would be a fantastic audio workflow.
For me this sort of integration and functionality would turn these apps from good apps into great apps, that would be indispensable when it comes to the classroom and recording podcasts with students.
- Posted using BlogPress from my Acorn Atom
Free Kindle book about the iPad
Thanks to @londonbackpackr for sharing this with me on Twitter.
Beginner's guide to using your iPad as a business productivity tool http://amzn.to/mDKbPG #free_kindle_book
- Posted using BlogPress from my Dragon32
Beginner's guide to using your iPad as a business productivity tool http://amzn.to/mDKbPG #free_kindle_book
- Posted using BlogPress from my Dragon32
Saturday, 28 May 2011
RIP: The fall of the Best Camera app
One of my favourite photo editing apps was the Best Camera app. But it has been replaced in my affections by other apps like Camera+ and Camera Plus Pro.
It's sad really as Best Camera had some nice touches, like being able to apply multiple filters.
What makes it worse for me is that Best Camera could of been as big as Instagram. It had the sharing of your photos, you could vote on others pictures, but sadly could not subscribe to other photographers. So kind of half way there on the social side.
And while new competitors came out like the Lisa Bettany backed Camera+, and Instagram, Best Camera failed to update and stay ahead of the group.
Best Camera had it all, it had Chase Jarvis and his book behind it, it was a pretty good app, great filters etc, had a social and sharing side. And where is it now? Lagging behind. It almost seems as if the developer and Chase Jarvis got bored with the app and are letting it just die.
It's sad to see an app go this way. I feel pretty angry really. I liked the app, I spent good money on it, I recommended it to friends when they asked for an app to use.
Oh well I just have to remember not to be fooled by Chase Jarvis and the Best Camera app developers again.
- Posted using BlogPress from my ZX81
It's sad really as Best Camera had some nice touches, like being able to apply multiple filters.
What makes it worse for me is that Best Camera could of been as big as Instagram. It had the sharing of your photos, you could vote on others pictures, but sadly could not subscribe to other photographers. So kind of half way there on the social side.
And while new competitors came out like the Lisa Bettany backed Camera+, and Instagram, Best Camera failed to update and stay ahead of the group.
Best Camera had it all, it had Chase Jarvis and his book behind it, it was a pretty good app, great filters etc, had a social and sharing side. And where is it now? Lagging behind. It almost seems as if the developer and Chase Jarvis got bored with the app and are letting it just die.
It's sad to see an app go this way. I feel pretty angry really. I liked the app, I spent good money on it, I recommended it to friends when they asked for an app to use.
Oh well I just have to remember not to be fooled by Chase Jarvis and the Best Camera app developers again.
- Posted using BlogPress from my ZX81
Friday, 20 May 2011
Mystery Footballer Takes On Twitter
I woke up this morning to Radio Five Live covering the news story of Twitter being taken to court by a mystery footballer.
Now before I go any further I will state I am not a lawyer, so none of what I am about to say is based in legal fact. It is just ramblings and thoughts on the subject and my understanding on how things are.
Right back to this mystery footballer. In the UK our courts have what has been described in our press as a "super injunction". A "super injunction" is a way for the rich and famous to try and protect their privacy. Or as it is really used to stop the press from reporting the indiscretions of the rich and famous, such as having affairs.
How does a "super injunction" help them do this? Well basically it's a gagging order that stops the press in the UK from reporting those indiscretions to the public. And here is the super part it also stops the reporting that they are not allowed report on the story.
So once a "super injunction" has been granted nothing can be reported. Pretty cool hey? Now the reason I said that this was for the rich and famous is that it costs a lot of money to do this, so it is definitely out of reach of normal people to get.
Let's get back to this footballer. Now it got out that a footballer (who like Lord Voldemont in Harry Potter can't be named because of a "super injunction") got a "super injunction" to stop the reporting of an affair that he had.
Sadly for this footballer his name got out and was reported on Twitter by users there. Which brings us to the story hitting the UK press front pages of lawyers acting on behalf of this mystery footballer taking Twitter to court in the UK to get the details of those users naming the footballer.
Which is weird. Because Twitter is firstly a company based in San Francisco in the US of A. So isn't answerable to the UK courts. Which means that those lawyers should be going to the US courts to get the user details. Secondly because this is UK law, the US courts could rightly decide that this is a UK issue and deny the request and say Twitter doesn't have to hand the details over.
I think what we can take for granted is that Twitter will stand up and refuse to hand the details over (Twitter have a track record of defending their user details), and force the footballers lawyers to go to the US courts.
Now when the Digital Economy Bill was being passed I thought there was clauses that allowed the UK Government to block websites. What I can't remember if this was linked just to sites pirating stuff or it could be any site for any reason the UK minister decided. So it is possible for the courts to ask the UK minister that has the power to block sites to get Twitter blocked in the UK for breaking UK law.
Could you imagine that, UK Twitter users blocked from using Twitter. How big an out roar would there be? It would be a brave Government that did this.
But I hope this flight of fancy happens, because it would show Joe public in the UK just how bad the Digital Economy Bill is, and would put pressure on the Government to reform it.
However as I stated at the start these are just ramblings on a tech subject in the news today that I know nothing about. What I do know is that we have far more entertainment value to come from this story, and lots of inaccurate reporting in the UK press on the tech issues.
- Posted using BlogPress from my ZX81
Now before I go any further I will state I am not a lawyer, so none of what I am about to say is based in legal fact. It is just ramblings and thoughts on the subject and my understanding on how things are.
Right back to this mystery footballer. In the UK our courts have what has been described in our press as a "super injunction". A "super injunction" is a way for the rich and famous to try and protect their privacy. Or as it is really used to stop the press from reporting the indiscretions of the rich and famous, such as having affairs.
How does a "super injunction" help them do this? Well basically it's a gagging order that stops the press in the UK from reporting those indiscretions to the public. And here is the super part it also stops the reporting that they are not allowed report on the story.
So once a "super injunction" has been granted nothing can be reported. Pretty cool hey? Now the reason I said that this was for the rich and famous is that it costs a lot of money to do this, so it is definitely out of reach of normal people to get.
Let's get back to this footballer. Now it got out that a footballer (who like Lord Voldemont in Harry Potter can't be named because of a "super injunction") got a "super injunction" to stop the reporting of an affair that he had.
Sadly for this footballer his name got out and was reported on Twitter by users there. Which brings us to the story hitting the UK press front pages of lawyers acting on behalf of this mystery footballer taking Twitter to court in the UK to get the details of those users naming the footballer.
Which is weird. Because Twitter is firstly a company based in San Francisco in the US of A. So isn't answerable to the UK courts. Which means that those lawyers should be going to the US courts to get the user details. Secondly because this is UK law, the US courts could rightly decide that this is a UK issue and deny the request and say Twitter doesn't have to hand the details over.
I think what we can take for granted is that Twitter will stand up and refuse to hand the details over (Twitter have a track record of defending their user details), and force the footballers lawyers to go to the US courts.
Now when the Digital Economy Bill was being passed I thought there was clauses that allowed the UK Government to block websites. What I can't remember if this was linked just to sites pirating stuff or it could be any site for any reason the UK minister decided. So it is possible for the courts to ask the UK minister that has the power to block sites to get Twitter blocked in the UK for breaking UK law.
Could you imagine that, UK Twitter users blocked from using Twitter. How big an out roar would there be? It would be a brave Government that did this.
But I hope this flight of fancy happens, because it would show Joe public in the UK just how bad the Digital Economy Bill is, and would put pressure on the Government to reform it.
However as I stated at the start these are just ramblings on a tech subject in the news today that I know nothing about. What I do know is that we have far more entertainment value to come from this story, and lots of inaccurate reporting in the UK press on the tech issues.
- Posted using BlogPress from my ZX81
Saturday, 9 April 2011
The Incredible Multi Use iPad Camera Connection Kit
When I got my iPad I also got with it the camera connection kit. The camera connection kit comes as two docking connector adaptors, one a USB port and the other a SD card reader.
I had in the the previous year since the iPad had come out heard reports that people could plugin other devices such as keyboards and microphones into the camera connection kit. And those devices would happily work with the iPad.
So what have I had working with the camera connection kit?
Well I listen to iPad today and Leo Laporte is an early episode spent way to much time of the episode looking at ways of transferring photos from the iPhone 4 onto the iPad using apps like Bump or Dropbox. At the time I thought "why doesn't he just try plugging in the iPhone via the camera connection kit?" So guess what one of the first things I tried with the kit was? Yep connecting my iPhone 4 up to it to transfer photos.
And guess what? It worked. Plug your iPhone into your iPad using the camera connection kit and a docking cable, and all your photos on the iPhone appear in the photo import screen ready for importing.
Now you get the choice of importing everything in your camera roll onto your iPad. Or if you touch just the photos you want to take over (a blue tick appears on them) then press import you get the option to import all or just the ones you have just selected. Once the import has finished you can then either keep your photos on the iPhone or delete them.
The next thing I wanted to do was transfer images from a PC at work where I don't have a net connection for my wifi iPad to use in documents I was writing on my iPad in Keynote and Pages.
So using the SD card reader adaptor on a PC I transferred the images to a SD card. The images need to be placed in a folder on the card named "DCIM". You also need to make sure that the filenames of your images (excluding the file extension) are 8 characters in length. So valid filenames are "picture1.jpg" or "pictur01.jpg". The iPad will also recognise PNG files as well as JPG (I've not tried GIF yet).
Once you have your files on the SD card plug it into the camera connection kit SD card reader, plug in to iPad and away you go importing the pictures on to your iPad and it's photo albums ready for use.
I also have an old Targus USB keyboard lying around that I use with my consoles when I have to browse the web and send messages etc. So guess what this also works with my iPad when plugged in. It complains initially that the "device is not compatible". But guess what? Once you dismiss that dialog, and start typing with the external keyboard it actually does work with the iPad (I'm writing this paragraph with it).
In a previous post I have already mentioned that I have used the USB Rock Band microphone to record student podcasts. And that was enabled because it works via the camera connection kit.
So there you have it another essential purchase for your iPad. I'm sure that Apple didn't intend this to be so useful and flexible. But I like so many are grateful that it is.
- Posted using BlogPress from my ZX81
I had in the the previous year since the iPad had come out heard reports that people could plugin other devices such as keyboards and microphones into the camera connection kit. And those devices would happily work with the iPad.
So what have I had working with the camera connection kit?
Well I listen to iPad today and Leo Laporte is an early episode spent way to much time of the episode looking at ways of transferring photos from the iPhone 4 onto the iPad using apps like Bump or Dropbox. At the time I thought "why doesn't he just try plugging in the iPhone via the camera connection kit?" So guess what one of the first things I tried with the kit was? Yep connecting my iPhone 4 up to it to transfer photos.
And guess what? It worked. Plug your iPhone into your iPad using the camera connection kit and a docking cable, and all your photos on the iPhone appear in the photo import screen ready for importing.
Now you get the choice of importing everything in your camera roll onto your iPad. Or if you touch just the photos you want to take over (a blue tick appears on them) then press import you get the option to import all or just the ones you have just selected. Once the import has finished you can then either keep your photos on the iPhone or delete them.
The next thing I wanted to do was transfer images from a PC at work where I don't have a net connection for my wifi iPad to use in documents I was writing on my iPad in Keynote and Pages.
So using the SD card reader adaptor on a PC I transferred the images to a SD card. The images need to be placed in a folder on the card named "DCIM". You also need to make sure that the filenames of your images (excluding the file extension) are 8 characters in length. So valid filenames are "picture1.jpg" or "pictur01.jpg". The iPad will also recognise PNG files as well as JPG (I've not tried GIF yet).
Once you have your files on the SD card plug it into the camera connection kit SD card reader, plug in to iPad and away you go importing the pictures on to your iPad and it's photo albums ready for use.
I also have an old Targus USB keyboard lying around that I use with my consoles when I have to browse the web and send messages etc. So guess what this also works with my iPad when plugged in. It complains initially that the "device is not compatible". But guess what? Once you dismiss that dialog, and start typing with the external keyboard it actually does work with the iPad (I'm writing this paragraph with it).
In a previous post I have already mentioned that I have used the USB Rock Band microphone to record student podcasts. And that was enabled because it works via the camera connection kit.
So there you have it another essential purchase for your iPad. I'm sure that Apple didn't intend this to be so useful and flexible. But I like so many are grateful that it is.
- Posted using BlogPress from my ZX81
Amazon App Store Some Thoughts
One thing that has been bothering me, well not bothering more nagging away, is how easy a ride Amazon are getting over their new app store for Android.
How many times do we hear complaints, and attacks on Apple for their app store policies? All the time.
Now we have Amazon starting an Android app store where the terms of use for developers to me seem just as draconian as Apples, if not more so.
To me Amazon are controlling their store even more by taking the decision over how much a developer can charge for their app out of the developers hands. Amazon can give a paid for app away for free if they decide they want to, or decide they want to charge less than the price decided by the developer.
And granted that the initial years fee is being waved by Amazon (in order to try and attract developers), Amazon will be charging developers access to their app store. Just like Apple does, and gets heat for.
Of course we have yet to see what the approval process is like for apps to appear in the Amazon app store is like, and whether it is more open in it's workings and approvals than Apple.
Then we have have the cut taken by Amazon which is the same as Apples cut of 30%.
How could we forget the recent wave of abuse over Apples subscription policy for magazines. Especially that "unfair" policy of having an offer from a website also on the app store. Yet Amazon has similar for its apps, requiring offers and updates to also be made available on their app store if they are available on other app stores.
And yet with all this not a squeak really from the hypocritical Android fanboys. Yes they can argue "oh but you don't have to put it on the Amazon app store". But I would argue yes you do. The Amazon app store is going to be massive for Android. It will make it so easy for Android users to buy apps using their existing Amazon account. Plus Amazon is a name folks trust, and they have a massive user base. Things you can't ignore if you are a developer.
Well we will have to wait and see if any bitching happens.
- Posted using BlogPress from my ZX81
How many times do we hear complaints, and attacks on Apple for their app store policies? All the time.
Now we have Amazon starting an Android app store where the terms of use for developers to me seem just as draconian as Apples, if not more so.
To me Amazon are controlling their store even more by taking the decision over how much a developer can charge for their app out of the developers hands. Amazon can give a paid for app away for free if they decide they want to, or decide they want to charge less than the price decided by the developer.
And granted that the initial years fee is being waved by Amazon (in order to try and attract developers), Amazon will be charging developers access to their app store. Just like Apple does, and gets heat for.
Of course we have yet to see what the approval process is like for apps to appear in the Amazon app store is like, and whether it is more open in it's workings and approvals than Apple.
Then we have have the cut taken by Amazon which is the same as Apples cut of 30%.
How could we forget the recent wave of abuse over Apples subscription policy for magazines. Especially that "unfair" policy of having an offer from a website also on the app store. Yet Amazon has similar for its apps, requiring offers and updates to also be made available on their app store if they are available on other app stores.
And yet with all this not a squeak really from the hypocritical Android fanboys. Yes they can argue "oh but you don't have to put it on the Amazon app store". But I would argue yes you do. The Amazon app store is going to be massive for Android. It will make it so easy for Android users to buy apps using their existing Amazon account. Plus Amazon is a name folks trust, and they have a massive user base. Things you can't ignore if you are a developer.
Well we will have to wait and see if any bitching happens.
- Posted using BlogPress from my ZX81
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