It’s All Tech is reporting that IOS 5 Beta 3 has been released along with an updated version of iTunes. Carrying build # 9A5259f
There are a lot of changes related to Location Based Services which can be turned off or selectively turned on.
Interestingly enough Apple seems immune to their rules, they have placed a link to the iTunes store in the Music App. Classy.
The author of Growl has announced that they are going to distribute the next version of Growl (An amazing notification system for OS X) via the Apple Mac App Store. Read the announcement after the jump.
U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton did not grant Apple an injunction against Amazon’s App Store saying that while she did not think Apple’s App Store trademark was generic, she disagreed that Apple had shown any potential for consumer confusion in respect to the two different app stores. The trial is scheduled to begin in October.
The case in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California is Apple Inc v. Amazon.com Inc, 11-1327.
Source: Yahoo (Reuters)
Tomorrow could see several reader apps leaving the App Store due to Apple’s new rules banning linking to purchase content outside of the Apple App Store. This may cause a lot of controversy for users because Amazon’s Kindle App is the most popular reader out there, selling more e-books than paper books lately. Apple’s Reader App does not have as many books as Amazon as well, and you can not read books from Apple on non Apple devices which for me is a deal breaker. Several companies such as Pandora have complained that Apple’s 30% cut model is not feasible because it leaves them with no profit. When a company’s profit margin is in the single digits that does not leave them anything to be paying a 3rd party, and I do agree a 30% cut off the top vs a percentage of profits is really harsh to some. Also Apple’s demand that you give App Store customers the same deals you give them on your website prevents app makers from passing the costs on to the consumer as well.
I think tomorrow we may see lawsuits filed from a group of companies that this impacts, the silence from Pandora, Amazon, and several others has been profound. They made their dislike of this policy known several months ago and even after Apple changed some things about the policy after playing chicken with the Financial Times and losing, they still did not change things enough to please other app makers.
Tired of your screen dimming or computer going to sleep while watching a movie or just reading a webpage for a lengthy period of time? Caffeine the popular Windows program to keep your computer awake is not available on the Mac from the Mac App Store. Just fire it up and it lives up in your menu bar and simulates a non used keystroke to keep your computer from snoozing when you do not want it to be. It’s a free App and even if it cost 99 cents it would still be worth it. You can get it by clicking here.
iPhoneDownloadBlog has a good review of a new App called Discovr which before helped you find new music on your iPhone. Now a new version released provides what I consider an interesting way to find Apps. You can read up on it here.
Just read over at the Washington Post that NASA now has an App for checking space weather. You can find the app by searching for SDO in the App store. Original story can be found here.
Don Reisinger over at Cnet offers a detailed look into why Facebook has been given the cold shoulder in iOS 5 while Twitter has seen much love from Apple. A few things he points are that the companies are just too different. Also maybe Apple knows that people have Facebook overload and would not appreciate it sticking its face in your face from every app. Whatever the difference is, Apple has turned it’s back on one of the largest user bases in history of social networks.
Apple has just announced that OS X 10.7 Lion will be available in July for 29.99 price and you can upgrade through the Mac App Store. It’s is a 4Gb download and for just 29.99 you can upgrade all Mac’s associated with the account.
From the Author “Our industry leading professional field recorder for iOS just got completely redesigned and rebuilt from the ground up. Although widely recognized by audio professionals as “best in class” we decided to skip the tweaks and create a next generation product incorporating many of the features our users have requested since FiRe’s initial release.”
You can find out more by clicking here or download via the iTunes App Store.