Tag Archives | Apple iOS

Facebook’s HTML5 Surprise?

Posted by Harry McCracken on June 16, 2011 at 12:22 pm

Yesterday, TechCrunch’s MG Siegler wrote about an unreleased Facebook photo app for the iPhone. Today, he’s reporting that Facebook is working on a super-ambitious platform for Mobile Safari on the iPhone and iPad–one that uses HTML5 to deliver the sort of experience usually associated with native iOS apps. He doesn’t have any real details, but it could be cool, and would explain Mark Zuckerberg’s famous disinterest in doing a Facebook app for the iPad.

There are some nifty browser-based mobile apps out there–Google’s Gmail for phones and tablets comes to mind. But there hasn’t been a truly killer app yet of the sort that leaves millions of people thinking that Web apps rather than local apps are the wave of the future. If Facebook is at least trying to pull off something like that, it’s exciting news.

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In Case It Wasn’t Clear Already, Apple Likes to Build Software for Apple Devices

Posted by Harry McCracken on June 13, 2011 at 1:37 pm

Over at This is My Next, Joshua Topolsky has a thought-provoking piece that says that Apple is going to discontinue its only major browser-based Web apps–the ones that are part of MobileMe–next year after iCloud is fully up and running. There’s a lively debate going on via Twitter between Topolsky and some folks who say that he has it all wrong: the MobileMe Web apps will survive the iCloud transition.

Even if the MobileMe Web apps don’t get the ax, the gist of Topolsky’s piece remains relevant. Apple filled last week’s WWDC keynote to the gills with news, but it was all about operating systems, apps, and an ambitious piece of Internet plumbing called iCloud. No surprise there: there’s never been much evidence that Apple is terribly interested in creating Web apps. But it loves to create traditional software that runs on hardware devices it builds.

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Windows 8/Lion/iOS 5/iCloud Wrapup

Posted by Harry McCracken on June 9, 2011 at 4:15 pm

Between Windows 8, OS X 10.7 Lion, iOS 5, and iCloud, we’ve been inundated with previews of new operating-system stuff over the last week or so–and the one thing they all have in common is that they look beyond the era of the PC as we knew it. (Even Windows 8–when Microsoft seems to be thinking in post-PC terms, you know something’s afoot.) That’s what I wrote about for my Technologizer column for TIME.com this week.

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Disaster Averted: Apple Revises App Store Content Rules

Posted by Harry McCracken on June 9, 2011 at 10:18 am

Whew! Every time I’ve bought a Kindle book over the past few months, I’ve worried about the new iOS App Store guidelines Apple announced earlier this year, which said that app developers could only give iOS users access to content purchased outside of the App Store if the same content was available inside the App Store at the same price.

Apple takes a 30 percent cut of the money publishers make inside the App Store. So the new rule seemed to force some companies into an impossible situation–such as Amazon, which was already handing 70 percent of Kindle book prices over to publishers. Apple apparently wanted all of the remaining 30 percent for itself, destroying Amazon’s business model.

But as MacRumors’ Jordan Golson is reporting, Apple has quietly blinked. Now the rules don’t say that app developers need to match content offers made outside of the App Store inside the App Store. Companies don’t need to use In App Purchases at all. They just can’t provide a “Buy” button inside an app that makes it easy for a user to go to the Web and buy new content.

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Ten Questions About Today’s Apple News

Posted by Harry McCracken on June 6, 2011 at 6:02 pm


Almost 38,000 folks turned out for Technologizer’s live coverage of Apple’s WWDC keynote this morning. We had a good time. But as the comments came in from attendees, there was clearly a serious contingent of folks who still held out hope that Apple was going to announce a new iPhone today–and who just didn’t care that much about software and services. For them, no new hardware meant that the event was a letdown.

On Twitter, I responded this way:

This was among the most news-packed Apple events I can recall, and in its own way it was one of the most wildly ambitious ones. Apple is finally making the iPhone and iPad into autonomous devices that don’t rely on a Mac or Windows PC. It wants to store vast quantities of data for us and be responsible for safeguarding it and getting it to the right place. It’s making iOS look more like OS X and OS X look more like iOS. It’s not yet clear whether all of this stuff will pan out, and people who already bristle at Apple’s approach to the world will like this new, more fully Apple-centric version less than ever. But if you think the event was a big yawn because there wasn’t a new iPhone that was a bit thinner and a bit faster, you live in a different world than I do.

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Live WWDC Coverage This Morning

Posted by Harry McCracken on June 6, 2011 at 1:54 am

Our liveblog coverage of Apple’s WWDC keynote begins at 10am PT at technologizer.com/wwdc11. Come join me, Ed Oswald, and Techland’s Doug Aamoth as we get the skinny on OS X 10.7 Lion, the next version of iOS, and iCloud from Steve Jobs and company.


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Hours Before Our WWDC Live Coverage…Your Predictions!

Posted by Harry McCracken on June 5, 2011 at 11:42 pm

First a promotional message: I’ll be  at Moscone West in San Francisco on Monday morning at 10am PT for Apple’s WWDC keynote. I’ll be joined in our CoverItLive room by Ed Oswald, Techland’s Doug Aamoth, and, I hope, you. We’ll be at technologizer.com/wwdc11.

In the meantime, let’s review your answers to the predictions I asked you to make about the next version of iOS 5 which Apple will announce tomorrow. (It’ll also finish up launching OS X 10.7 Lion and announce iCloud.)

Without any further ado…

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The Next Version of iOS: Predictions, Please!

Posted by Harry McCracken on June 4, 2011 at 10:41 am


[UPDATE: I’m closing the survey and compiling the results. Thanks, folks!]

At 10am PT on Monday, June 6th, Apple will hold its WWDC 2011 keynote, with news about OS X 10.7 Lion, the next version of iOS, and something called iCloud. I’ll be there in person at San Francisco’s Moscone West  for Technologizer’s live coverage, joined by Ed Oswald and Techland’s Doug Aamoth for color commentary.

You can join us on Monday at technologizer.com/wwdc11, and I hope you will. (You can also head there now to sign up for an e-mail reminder.)

With less than 48 hours to go, time is running out to make predictions about what we’ll learn. We already know most of the details about Lion, and iCloud remains fairly enigmatic. So let’s focus in on iOS 5, or whatever the next version of the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad operating system turns out to be called.

I’ve put together a survey that’ll let you make predictions about iOS 5 features and enhancements, (It’ll take you a minute or two to complete.) I’ll report on our aggregate predictions as a group before the keynote–and after Steve Jobs and company have spoken, we can see how accurate we were.

Click here to take the survey.  Thanks for participating, and see you on Monday.

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Coming on Monday: WWDC 2011 Live Blog Coverage

Posted by Harry McCracken on June 2, 2011 at 6:29 pm

On Monday June 6th at 10am PT, I’ll be at San Francisco’s Moscone West for Steve Jobs’ WWDC keynote. It sounds packed, packed, packed–we’ll get our last big look at OS X 10.7 Lion before it ships, and our first big looks at the next version of iOS, and the long-rumored service now known as iCloud. And rumor has it that there are occasionally surprise announcements at these events. (I’m told Jobs likes to keep them until the end.)

I’ll blog the keynote news as it happens, with color commentary from special guest Doug Aamoth of Techland. Tens of thousands of folks attended our last Apple live coverage (the iPad 2 announcement), but we’ll save room for you. Join us at technologizer.com/wwdc11–and go there now to sign up for an e-mail reminder if you like.

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