The news just keeps getting better for Apple in the mobile phone business. Just yesterday, IDC reported that the company is in third place in terms of worldwide mobile phone sales. Today, Asymco analyst Horace Dediu announced that with a relatively small piece of the pie (IDC said 6 percent of market, Dediu says 8.7 percent), Apple is pulling in a whopping 75 percent of profits in the industry.

Philip Elmer-DeWitt at Apple 2.0 notes in an analysis of Dediu's numbers that out of the top eight manufacturers, only five are showing meaningful profits. Samsung has about a 16 percent profit share, while "Nokia, Research in Motion, and HTC are just scraping by. Motorola, LG and Sony, which bought out Ericsson last month, are still in the red."

As Elmer-DeWitt points out, this is for all mobile phones, not just smartphones. And these numbers are for the worldwide market, not just the United States. He concludes that "This doesn't bode well for the manufacturers who have hitched their wagon to Google's Android or Microsoft's Windows Mobile 7."

Apple rollin' in the dough: 75% of cell phone profits originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

An incremental release for iBooks Author has been released with changes to the program's EULA. The update is 143.50 MB, which seems pretty hefty for a EULA change.

The change is an important one though, clarifying that Apple has rights over the format a book is in, not the content. If someone wants to charge a fee for an .ibooks formatted file, that document can only be sold or distributed through Apple, and that work will be subject to a separate agreement with Apple. The restriction does not include works distributed in non-.ibooks formats (such as the Kindle), as TUAW's Erica Sadun previously discussed.

iBooks Author 1.01 out with updated EULA originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Several OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard users are reporting that Power PC-coded apps no longer work after applying Security Update 2012-001.

The Apple support boards are full of stories about Rosetta apps crashing when any command is selected from the menu bar. Complaints seem heaviest from those running older versions of Microsoft Office, Quicken, FileMaker and Photoshop. Some users have recommended unofficial workarounds for the problem (attempt at your own risk), and it isn't known if Apple will fix the issue.

Rosetta was deep-sixed in Lion, but was working fine in Snow Leopard until the security update was issued on Wednesday. Rosetta was introduced in Mac OS X 10.4.4; the code-translation layer allows apps that require a PowerPC Mac to operate on Intel-based Macs.

Meanwhile, this week's Lion update had its own share of issues, with a number of users seeing strange graphics on screen and getting caught in a loop where applications would not close or re-open. Fortunately, it seems that applying the 10.7.3 combo update fixed the issue for many users.

Users report Rosetta problems after Security Update 2012-001 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Motorola scored a victory against Apple today when it won a permanent injunction against the company's iCloud and MobileMe push email service. According to FOSS Patents, the injunction is "preliminarily enforceable," which means Motorola can enforce the ruling right away by posting a 100 million euro bond. Posting a bond and enforcing this ruling is risky, though. If Apple appeals and wins, then Motorola will be liable for damages from enforcing this injunction early.

If enforced, Apple must disable the push email portion of its iCloud and MobileMe service. Customers in Germany affected by this injunction will have to turn off push email and configure their mail clients to pull down emails periodically. This permanent injunction resulted from a complaint filed by Motorola in April 2011. Apple has the right to contest this ruling and will likely file a formal appeal with the Karlsruhe Higher Regional Court.

Apple and Motorola scuffle over iCloud and push email originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Dear Aunt TUAW,

I would like to run Mac OS X 10.6.7 off a RAM disk, for better performance/security while browsing the World Wide Web (I don't want to save the image with all those gnarly cookie crumbs to disk).

I understand that a family living down the street from me is able to run Linux from a RAM disk -- can you help me out?

Your loving niece,

Emily

Dear Emily,

Auntie immediately consulted with Unkie Mike after receiving your letter. He responded as follows:

Running OS X off a RAM disk isn't supported (and hasn't been on the Mac for a long, long time -- since Mac OS 9, in fact). Linux is a different beast.

You can run a browser in private or 'incognito' mode if you're concerned about security, or use a virtualization tool like Parallels or VMware to run a virtual Mac on your Mac. However, to run 10.6.7 virtualized you'd need the server version (expensive).

You can get most of the performance benefits of a RAM disk with an SSD boot drive, which we've covered on the site.

Further, Unkie uncovered the following information from a post on the MacRumors forum. Attributed to a "former Apple Employee," this seems to describe why RAM disks are a poor match to OS X.

That thing is snake oil, as are the vast majority of ramdisk products on OS X. Designing a ramdisk that works well on OS X is remarkably difficult because backing a block device into wired memory causes the contents to be double buffered above it in the Unified Buffer Cache.

For transient data on systems with no VM pressure, what will happen is the file is created, the object backing it sits in the UBC, it might get synched to disk, but unless you are running low on ram it stays in ram as well. That is why you see no speed increases, all you are doing is eliminating the background asynch writeout, and you are wasting a lot of ram to do it. More importantly, if you are actually creating a wired ram disk you are eating a ton of kernel address space which can be an issue if you have a lot of memory (large page tables) or several video cards.

Getting back to your actual issue, it sounds to Auntie as if you're looking for a secure browsing solution rather than a RAM disk boot solution. For that, take a look at this Macworld hints post that shows you how to store your Safari cache on a RAM drive.

Hope this helps.

Hugs,

Auntie T.

Dear Aunt TUAW: Can I boot from a RAM disk? originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Earlier today, Apple was forced to remove the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 (not the iPhone 4S), and all 3G iPads from its online store in Germany. This injunction was short-lived as Apple appealed and the German court suspended the ban.

The company told Slashgear, "Apple appealed this ruling because Motorola repeatedly refuses to license this patent to Apple on reasonable terms, despite having declared it an industry standard patent seven years ago." It also confirmed that "All iPad and iPhone models will be back on sale through Apple's online store in Germany shortly."

According to FOSS Patents, The orignal removal was the result of a German court ruling in favor of Motorola that was handed down in early December. In this decision, the Mannheim Regional Court said Apple violated telecommunication patents owned by Motorola. Motorola had the option to enforce the ban by posting a 100 million euro bond and it appears that the company took this step earlier today.

[Via FOSS Patents]

Apple resumes sales of 3G iPhones and iPads in Germany originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 03 Feb 2012 11:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Apple stepped up its legal campaign against Samsung by expanding its Australian lawsuit to include 278 new claims which cover 22 patents and ten devices. The original suit, filed last year, targeted only the Galaxy Tab 10.1, which Apple claimed violated less than five of its patents.

Samsung lead barrister Neil Young spoke to The Australian, and said Apple "enormously" expanded its legal claim against Samsung. He confirmed the Korean company was given "days notice" of this expanded claim and may need until mid-May to prepare properly for its defense.

Last December 2011, the case took a turn in favor of Samsung when a judge overturned Apple's injunction banning the sale of the Galaxy 10.1 tablet. Samsung was able to obtain this reversal just in time to catch the end of the holiday shopping season.

[Via The Next Web]

Apple expands Australian lawsuit against Samsung with 278 new claims originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 03 Feb 2012 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The pocket version of Ticket to Ride by Days of Wonder is among the best board game adaptations for the iPhone, and it's just gotten better with asynchronous multiplayer support. Now you can start a game with friends through Game Center, and take turns back and forth across the Internet. The experience is similar to popular multiplayer games like Words with Friends and Hero Academy.

This free update also expands the game's local multiplayer mode, so that users on the same Bluetooth or Wi-Fi network can play across devices. Ticket to Ride for the iPhone and iPod touch is available for US$1.99 in the App Store, while the iPad version is priced at $6.99.

Days of Wonder notes that Ticket to Ride has been extremely popular. It has sold over 350,000 copies, and a new online game is begun every four seconds on average. The game is definitely excellent, and the success is well-deserved.

Ticket to Ride Pocket adds asynchronous multiplayer originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Apple held an all-employee Town Hall meeting a little while ago after the earnings call, and The Verge is reporting that Apple CEO Tim Cook took quite a bit of time during the meeting to point out Apple's charitable contributions to the world. He said that Apple has given $50 million to Stanford hospitals, and over $50 million to the Project RED effort (to help fight AIDS in Africa), making Apple that fund's largest contributor.

It seems as if we've found one big difference between Cook and his legendary predecessor: Cook wants to make it clear that he's serious about giving, and letting people know about it. Cook has also pushed for an employee donation matching program at Apple, so he's got a history, even in his short tenure so far, of endorsing strong charitable contributions.

Of course, all of that said, $100 million is still just pocket change for a company that has almost $100 billion in the bank. But every little bit counts, we suppose.

Tim Cook focuses on charity during Town Hall meeting originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Apple conquered the smartphone and tablet market, and it may be turning its sights on the gaming market next. According to a report from MCV, Robin Burrowes, the Xbox Live marketing manager for EMEA, has left Microsoft to join Apple. Burrowes will supposedly take over marketing for the App Store in Europe. Apple hasn't commented on this report, so this is still a rumor.

If this is true, Burrowes will become the third high-profile gaming hire to join Apple in the past year. Apple also grabbed Rob Saunders, former PR and communications boss for Nintendo, and Nick Grange, the previous PR head for Xbox.

Does this mean Apple is taking a new direction in gaming? Probably not. We'll likely see an increase in marketing for iOS games as a result. There may also be an increased emphasis on iOS as a gaming platform to replace portables like the Nintendo DS. Portable gaming is on a downward slide, and, as MacStories recently points out, Nintendo needs to overhaul its business before the iPhone and iPad steal it away.

[Via Macgasm]

Former Xbox Live marketing exec may join Apple originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 02 Feb 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Although they haven't exactly explained how school systems or parents are going to pay for iPads or other tablets for every student, the US government is pushing a new initiative to move from standard printed textbooks to digital textbooks within the next five years. While it's good to see that a focus on digital textbooks is finally at hand, it's going to take more than a press release, five years and a "playbook" to make the transition happen.

According to an AP news release, "Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski on Wednesday challenged schools and companies to get digital textbooks in students' hands within five years."

In an interview, Duncan asked, "Do we want kids walking around with 50-pound backpacks and every book in those backpacks costing 50, 60, 70 dollars and many of them being out of date? Or, do we want students walking around with a mobile device that has much more content than was even imaginable a couple years ago and can be constantly updated? I think it's a very simple choice."

To school systems that are battling drastically decreased budgets and trying to replace or repair crumbling infrastructure, it might not be such a "simple choice." Likewise, there doesn't appear to have been much (if any) thought on how parents or schools systems are going to replace equipment that is broken or lost by students, or how to pay for digital devices to be refreshed every three to five years.

Wednesday's announcement comes just two weeks after Apple's education event and the launch of iBooks textbooks. The company is perfectly placed, both in terms of the iPad hardware platform and iBooks Author creation tool, to benefit from a move to interactive and easily updated electronic textbooks.

The government released a 67-page "playbook" promoting the use of digital textbooks and offering guidance to school systems who want to make the move. At the current time, about US$8 billion is spent each year on traditional textbooks for K-12 school kids. With an Apple educational discount, that could pay for more than 17 million iPads each year. If Apple, as rumored, brings down the price of entry into the iPad market by selling the iPad 2 alongside a future model, more devices could make it into the hands of students across the nation.

On the other hand, switching to digital textbooks means more than just acquiring hardware and buying textbook apps. In many cases, the curriculum provided by a school district and even the methods used by instructors to teach students must change as well. The educational five-year plan is a noble goal; it's just not very realistic.

US government wants schools to embrace digital textbooks originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Learning a new language can be challenging, especially when you're not in an environment where that langue is predominant. Lingibli is an iPhone app that'll bridge that gap by helping you learn vocabulary and basic phrases from native speakers. The app will teach you the top 100 words which comprise the bulk of conversational language.

Lingibli lets you select from a list of common words or phrases. The words are listed individually and include several related expressions. For example, the Spanish language pack includes the word for computer, ordenador, and phrases like "turn on the computer" (encienda el ordenador). The phrases are organized into categories which cover topics like time, numbers, eating and getting help. This phrase list would be extremely helpful for someone who is traveling.

When you select a word or phrase, you can listen to a native speaker pronounce it clearly and properly. They speak with the correct emphasis and talk slowly enough for new learners to understand. This audio component is the key to learning how to speak each word or phrase properly and Lingibli handles it very well.

To make the language learning process fun, you can also use Lingibli as a game. Customers can visit the company's website and print up a sheet with QR codes. The codes contain common words that you can paste around the house. Lingibli has a built-in QR code scanner that'll identify the word and speak it back to you. If you have kids, you can hand them your iPhone and send them on a language-scanning adventure.

Lingibli is available for free from the iOS App Store. The app supports 19 different languages including Arabic, Catalan, Czech, Danish, German, Greek, English, Spanish, Slovak, Finnish, French, Italian, Dutch, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, Turkish. Each language pack costs US$4.99 or you can buy all of them for $24.99.

Daily iPhone App: Lingibli originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Take that, Apple! Avid has just released an iPad iMovie competitor called Avid Studio. The US$4.99 app is a scaled-down version of Avid's pro video editing tools.

Avid Studio features a timeline and storyboard, plus some iPad-friendly gestures so you can scale images and videos. You can arrange your edits on the timeline for special effects like picture-in-picture.The app also offers 3D animations and transitions, and video tracks can be composited.

Avid Studio lets you export a project to the Avid Studio app for the PC via iCloud, and you can share your finished project via YouTube, Facebook or email. Videos not shot with the iPad camera can be imported with the iPad Camera Connection Kit.

While Avid's new iPad app is clearly a consumer tool and not a pro video editor, it does show some commitment from the company to Apple's platforms, and may serve as a 'gateway drug' for pros who are considering the Avid suite as an alternative to Final Cut Pro X. The initial poor reception for the release of Final Cut Pro X for the Mac last summer, which dropped many features and angered several professional customers, has provided an opening for alternative products.

Avid (and also Adobe, with its Premiere Pro product) stepped into the FCPX breach and offered discounts to FCPX users who wanted to switch to the pro products on the desktop. Avid's desktop suite runs only on a Windows PC and costs $169. Final Cut Pro X is $299 and requires an App Store-friendly version of Mac OS X.

Apple updated FCPX this week to bring back some features that were lost in the FCP7 to FCPX transition, but I think some video professionals and serious hobbyists feel the momentum is swinging away from Apple. [Award-winning editor Walter Murch isn't among the naysayers, at least not anymore. -Ed.]

Avid Studio for iPad will be $4.99 during a 30-day introductory period, and $8.00 after that. The app is a 30 MB download, and requires an iPad running iOS 5.0 or greater. Apple offers its own iOS version of iMovie for $4.99, which has been generally well reviewed.

Gallery: Avid Studio

Avid Studio takes iPad video editing to the next level originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 02 Feb 2012 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

In just five short years, Apple has become the third largest mobile phone manufacturer in the world. International Data Corporation (IDC), as part of the continuing Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker survey, noted that the overall mobile phone market is still growing despite a major decline in numbers for low-priced "feature phones."

Despite fierce competition from both Apple and Samsung, Nokia retained its spot as the leader in mobile phone shipments. The company is transitioning from the Symbian OS for smartphones, having recently launched the Lumia line of Windows Phone-powered smartphones. IDC notes that Nokia's worldwide distribution and manufacturing presence will make it difficult for other companies to knock the Finnish company from its perch on the mobile phone throne.

Not surprisingly, Samsung was the number two manufacturer, selling more than 300 million phones in 2011. The company's Android smartphone line and new Windows Phone smartphones, along with a growing line of feature phones, inched Samsung even closer to Nokia's coveted number one spot.

Apple jumped from third position after being in fifth place in the previous quarter. The third-place finish is the highest ever for Apple, and the strong launch of the iPhone 4S was listed as the primary reason that the company leapfrogged over competitors LG and ZTE in the fourth quarter of 2011.

Rounding out the top five were Korean manufacturer LG, which has seen a drop in sales for the last year. Chinese vendor ZTE almost took over the fourth place position, moving from low-cost feature phones to increasingly powerful smartphones. ZTE has recently entered the North American market with Android and Windows Phone-powered smartphones.

The most fascinating number, however, was the year-over-year change in shipments. While arch-rival Samsung saw a 17.6 percent change in sales volume over the previous year, Apple saw a whopping 96.2 percent increase. Apple now has 6 percent of the total mobile phone market based on 2011 unit shipments; recall that Steve Jobs noted during the 2007 introduction of the iPhone that he'd be happy with a 1 percent share.

Apple becomes world's third largest mobile phone manufacturer originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 02 Feb 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Last year, we looked at Doodlecast for kids from zinc Roe. It's an iPad app that lets your kids record themselves talking while they draw on the screen. The app records both the audio and the drawing and combines the two into a single video. My kids loved Doodlecast and continue to fill my iPad with narrated drawings. With Doodlecast Pro, the developers took this underlying technology and used it to create a consumer version of the app.

Similar to the kids version, Doodlecast Pro lets you simultaneously record both your voice and your drawings on the iPad screen. Instead of doodles, it's meant for creating basic presentations and mocking up images. I could easily see an interior designer mocking up a picture of a room or a landscaper drawing out rough plans for an outdoor project. It would also be perfect for teachers who can mark a problem wrong on a student's quiz and whip up a Doodlecast video that explains why the answer is incorrect.

Anyone with video editing experience will appreciate the simplicity and efficiency of Doodlecast Pro. The first time you launch the app, you're presented with an open slate to create a Doodlecast. There's a set of tools that let you draw, erase and use a pointer to single out objects on the screen. You can also swap out the plain background with one from your iPad's photo roll.

When you're ready, you can hit the record button and start your narration. You can pause the recording at any point, make changes and resume right where you left off. When you're done recording, you can save the file to your Photos, share it via email or upload it to YouTube.

The app makes it so easy to create and share a short video with images and audio. I can't imagine doing it manually with a standard video camera, a microphone and Final Cut Pro. It would take you an hour manually, ten minutes with Doodlecast Pro. It's also very flexible. You can use it to whip up a quick video to send to a co-worker or take time to do some planning and produce a presentation your could send to a client.

Doodlecast Pro just landed in the App Store for US$3.99. Check it out and let us know what you think.

Daily iPad App: Doodlecast Pro originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

For the past few weeks, I have run into a problem with links to Apple.com coming up 404 "not found." Specifically, these have all been links to pages on http://support.apple.com/. For example, this morning I did a Google search for 10.7.3 combo. One of the first results was a link to http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1484 which came up 404.

Here's where it gets interesting: the link is only 404 in Safari. It works in Google Chrome and Firefox. If you reload the page in Safari (⌘ + R), it will load as usual. As if that wasn't strange enough, once it has loaded correctly, subsequent visits to pages at http://support.apple.com/ work fine... for a while. Then I will see the "We're sorry" page again.

Several TUAW staff members have been seeing this bug for a few weeks with Safari in 10.7.2; unfortunately, it is not fixed with 10.7.3. Fortunately the "workaround" is fairly simple: if you get a 404 page on support.apple.com, try reloading the page, or just use a different browser. You'll need to do so if you're downloading the combo update to fix install issues with 10.7.3.

Safari users seeing random '404 not found' on valid support.apple.com pages originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 02 Feb 2012 10:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Flipboard added another feature to its popular social stream and news reading app that'll please international users. Announced earlier this week, the company will be sending out three new Content guides for readers in Australia, Canada and the UK and Ireland. Folks in those countries will soon receive news that's custom-selected for those regions. These areas will join China, France, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, which already have local recommendations.

If your iPad's or iPhone's region is set to one of the countries mentioned above, then you will automatically receive your local guide. To switch back to the original, un-filtered content, you'll have to set your device's country location to the United States. That's somewhat inconvenient, but Flipboard says it will soon let you choose your country from within the app.

Localized Flipboard Content guides available for UK, Ireland, Australia and Canada originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 02 Feb 2012 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Image: Shutterstock.com

The next time you go to an Apple store, you should resist the urge to fire up Photo Booth and snap a photo of yourself gazing into that MacBook Pro. If you don't, you may find yourself part of an art exhibit like the one created by Irby Pace. According to a Wired article, Pace is a Master of Fine Arts student at the University of North Texas who created an Apple store-inspired gallery exhibit called Unintended Consequences.

The art work includes images Pace retrieved from display devices in a handful of Texas and New York City Apple stores. Pace began his project by visiting Apple stores, locating images left on a device and manually emailing the pictures to himself. Eventually, he figured out a way to dump a large number of them, over 1,000 pictures total, directly to his iPad. After combing through the images, he picked several striking snapshots, enlarged them and compiled them into an exhibit.

While his method may make some people uncomfortable, Pace doesn't think he did anything wrong. He argues, "the people [in the images] consciously left the images behind for anyone to see, or to take." He also did it under the noses of Apple employees who didn't seem to notice what Pace was doing. "None of them seemed interested at all in what I was doing," says Pace, "One employee in New York questioned what I was doing but I told him that I was merely comparing the products."

Pace's actions are similar to those of Kyle McDonald who used spyware to capture images of people looking at Apple computers in NYC retail stores. Unlike McDonald who took images without people's consent, Pace only took the files. The customer snapped the pictures and left them behind for someone like Pace to see and, as he would argue, take. Whether Pace has the right to these abandoned photos is questionable, but that's not stopping him from showing the exhibit. His work, Unintended Consequences, is slated to be shown next week at the Cora Stafford Gallery in Denton, TX.

Apple Store customer photos become part of art exhibit originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 02 Feb 2012 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

If you're a Photoshop user, you're likely aware of the editor's new "content-aware" tools that let you magically replace or erase items in your photos. iPhone users who want a similar tool on their handset should take a look at TouchRetouch by Adva-Soft. TouchRetouch is a simple tool that lets you highlight an object in a photo and either erase it or clone it in a few easy steps.

The app lets you load an image or grab one with your camera. Once you have the photo opened, you can zoom in on the object you want to remove or clone. You can grab the brush or lasso tool to select the object and the eraser to tidy up your selection. There's a zoom window in the corner of your image that helps you fine tune your selection. If you make a mistake, there's an undo and redo. Once your object is selected, you can click the "Start" button to remove it.

The app works best on objects that are small and not too close to other objects. A perfect example is the photograph of my yard, shown above, that I took after a day of light flurries. It's a nice winter shot that's marred by an unsightly tote in the yard. It took me less than five minutes to highlight the tote, remove it and save the image shown below. If you look closely at the image below, I also removed two snow statues built by my children. For the record, those were not unsightly. I just want to see how well the app worked.

Overall, TouchRetouch is a nice companion app for digital photographers. It's not as robust as Photoshop's content-aware tools, but it's perfect for a mobile device. It's lightweight and does a dent job removing items from a photo. At times, the app crashed and I had to restart, but that usually occurred when I loaded up the full resolution image. When I worked with lower resolution files, the performance was smooth. If you've got 99-cents in your pocket and you take lots of photos, TouchRetouch is worth grabbing from the iOS App Store.

Daily iPhone App: TouchRetouch originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 01 Feb 2012 22:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

I'm excited about this one -- Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective was one of the best mobile games on the year that didn't appear on iOS in 2011, but the wait is over: Though it's been on iOS in Japan for a little while, the game is finally coming to the App Store on this side of the world this evening. As of tomorrow, you'll be able to pick up Ghost Trick on your iPhone or iPad, no matter where you are. The game itself will be free, so you can play through the first two levels for no charge, and after that you can buy the rest of the content with an in-app purchase.

Ghost Trick is a fun one -- you play as a ghost detective who needs to solve crimes by inhabiting inanimate objects, like possessing phones to listen in on phone calls, or moving objects around to convince the living to move as well. It's a really great title that not a lot of people have picked up to play, so definitely give this one a look tomorrow when it's out.

Ghost Trick sneaks onto iOS tomorrow originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 01 Feb 2012 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.