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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Gizmodo has raised awareness a serious problem regarding an iMessage bug that, under the wrong circumstances, might result in your messages being seen by others, or you seeing someone else's messages. It's not a new issue; Ars Technica reported on it in December with stolen iPhones, and the problem is an ongoing one.

The behavior is most likely linked to Apple retaining the UDID of older phones in its database. The theory is that when a new UDID from a replacement device is linked to an Apple ID, the old identifier is not being removed. In the scenario Gizmodo discusses, the phone involved is owned by a minor who's now seeing iMessages that an Apple retail employee is sending to friends and loved ones -- all without the employee being aware. Gizmodo believes that when the minor's iPhone was taken to the Apple Store for repair, the employee swapped his SIM card -- not a standard practice -- with the phone being repaired, which is enough to cause the issue.

As underscored by the previous reports, this is a serious problem. But Gizmodo, apparently not having learned its lesson from a couple years ago, decided to make its point about this security flaw by plastering the Apple retail employee's iMessages on its site.

Gizmodo boasts that it's found a plethora of information on the employee, dubbed "Wiz," including his home address, Facebook, email, where he exercises and the Apple Store where he works. "We know enough about this guy to stalk him, blackmail him, and harass him, using nothing more than what we've picked up," writer Sam Biddle brags. The site has posted screenshots of Wiz's iMessages, which involve attempts at getting a date, discussing Apple's first quarter financial results, photos alone and with friends, and more.

While Gizmodo has made its point, it does so in a way that outs an employee who was just doing his job by repairing the kid's phone -- and he probably had no idea that this was happening until his photos and iMessages began to be plastered all over the Internet today. While the employee's name and face were blurred out, enough identifying details remain that it wouldn't be hard to figure out who he is. If Gizmodo can find him, so can anyone smart enough to do a bit of digging on Google.

What Gizmodo has done is sensationalistic and in extremely poor taste, even drawing criticism from content partner MSNBC, which chastised the site for posting the iMessage images. The sensationalism only serves to draw attention away from the bigger issue of people's information being compromised. Gizmodo could have gone about this in a different manner. Exposing the employee's private life to this degree was not necessary to make the point that something is seriously wrong with iMessage.

iPhone bug opens up stranger's life to the world originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Smappsoft sought me out a few times at Macworld | iWorld this year, so I was glad to see what they've been up to. Last I saw the company, they were working on a puzzle game called Look Again, and since then they've released a few other titles, including Chinese 13 Card Poker and a version of Look Again for children called Look Again, Jr. That app trades animals for the random patterns of the first title, and the devs are finding out that it's getting "a little traction in the special needs market" at schools, as teachers tell them that kids with communication issues can easily understand the game and how to win it.

Smappsoft's latest game, an as-yet-unreleased app is called Pokertini, is more for adults with the tagline, "video poker with a twist." Yes, it's a very colorful video poker game. The guys behind Smappsoft have also released an app called Hold 'Em Helper, so it's clear they're fans of card gambling.

Pokertini seems like fun. It is a video poker game (which means you get a hand of cards and then can hold or discard once, trying to make the best hand you can) with three hands, and the basic idea is that you place one bet that can be split across three hands. You can change up your bet after the first cards have arrived, so if you think you'll be luckier on the top hand than the bottom one, you can move coins up there (across the touchscreen) in the hopes that you'll score big. Scoring is pretty much the same as Vegas odds, so it's even money for Jacks or higher, and then more payouts on up the scale.

The twist is that you can buy "twists" with your money that will influence the cards that arrive. For example, you can buy a twist that blocks low or high cards, or one that shakes up all of the hands. Every few hands you'll get a bonus round, where you're given a matrix of 3 by 5 cards, and just asked to make the best hands with them that you can in the time allotted.

All of that was still under development, I was told. The team isn't quite sure how the bonus round will appear, and they're still considering how to make a compelling part of the game.

There are also badges and achievements to earn. The game uses a freemium model. There are in-app purchases for more coins and money. Smappsoft says you'll never completely run out of money, though. If you do, the game will always grant you a little more to play with.

If the team can balance out the twists and even out the bonus round, it should be a fun take on video poker, and if you already enjoy that pasttime, you'll probably love it. Smappsoft says Pokertini should be out later this year, so we'll keep an eye out for it.

Pokertini from Smappsoft on display at Macworld | iWorld 2012 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 01 Feb 2012 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Everyone knows that Apple did exceptionally well in the 2011 calendar year. Its revenues are up, its cash reserves are about to break the US$100 billion mark and its stock price is hovering around $455. This boom is not only beneficial for Apple, but, as Electronista points out, it's also a stimulus for other third-party companies involved in the manufacturing of these devices. We often forget that when Apple sells a record number of iPhones and iPads, other companies like ARM are selling a record number of chipsets, radios and camera sensors needed to make these devices.

ARM is one the biggest beneficiaries of this rise in mobile technology. The company's revenue grew 21 percent to US$217 million, and its profit jumped 45 percent. Across the entire industry, the company collected royalty revenue on the 2.2 billion chips it sold in Q4 2011 alone. Almost 60 percent of this royalty revenue came from phones, tablets and other mobile devices.

The top two mobile device manufacturers selling all these ARM-powered devices are Apple and Samsung. Combined, these two companies sold about 95 million mobile devices in the last three months of 2011.

ARM revenue jumps thanks to Apple, Samsung originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 01 Feb 2012 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

SRS Labs hosted a booth at Macworld | iWorld 2012 last week for two main reasons. First, the company wanted to show off the iPad version of MyTunes, its music player app that incorporates the company's patented sound enhancement algorithm. Second, it wanted to introduce an update to the iWow hardware itself, called the iWowU, that allows listeners to plug in to any source at all, from anywhere, straight through the headphone port.

MyTunes has been out on iPhone for a while, but SRS showed me the iPad version, which is pretty slick as an "outside of iTunes" music player. Not only can you play all of the audio in your iTunes library, you can use SRS' iWow processing on it. MyTunes has a few different equalizers to play around with, including a 10-band, a 3-band, and a series of music genre settings. There are also a few transition options, an option to raise or lower a recording's speed without changing the pitch (handy for listening to lots of podcasts as quickly as you can), and a "TruVolume" setting which keeps all of the music in your library at the same volume.

The SRS rep said the company's biggest issue with the app is that because of Apple's API limits, they can't apply the iWow processing to anything but the music in your iTunes library. Unfortunately that means MyTunes won't improve the sound coming out of streaming services like Pandora or Slacker. But the app seems like a solid alternative to iTunes, with the added bonus of all of SRS' technology. It should be available in about two weeks for free, with all features unlocked as a US$4.99 purchase.

The new iWowU is a little unit that plugs into the headphone adapter on your iDevice -- or any headphone adapter anywhere, as it will also work on a PC, Mac, or any music player with a headphone plug. Your headphones plug into the other end (the iPhone's white mic cord will work), and the iWow processing is sent along through the cable. Older models had to use the iPhone and iPod touch's dock connector to power the iWow unit, but the iWowU actually charges up with a microUSB cable, so it'll process the music wherever you want for about 5-6 hours before needing charging again.

SRS didn't have a price for the unit yet, but they said it'll be "similar to the current iWow," which is available for $59.99. The smaller size is nice, and the adapter for just a common headphone jack should mean listeners will have the chance to hear the iWow processing in all kinds of new places. The iWowU is due out later this year.

SRS takes the iWow universal at Macworld | iWorld 2012 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 01 Feb 2012 04:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

I first met Liv Games' Orian Livnat at last year's Macworld, where he showed me a wild game called Legendary Wars that mashed up a number of different genres and ideas in a mix created by Livnat and his family and friends. At the time I thought the game was a really interesting idea, but even I didn't expect the kind of success Liv Games has seen. A year later, the company had multiple booths in the mobile app showcase section at Macworld | iWorld 2012. Even while also running the show during the day, the team was hard at work on releasing the followup to Legendary Wars, Monster Wars.

That game is out now, and as you might imagine from the title, it follows the other side of the story, that of the monsters from the original game. Just like Legendary Wars, the graphics are colorful and the animations are very well done. Livnat and his crew have really blown what was already a very broad idea out even further, adding more unit types, more abilities, more game modes to play around with, and lots more upgrades and add-ons to earn throughout the longer campaign. Fans will really love spotting all of the updates here; there are lots more "pets" running around during batle, for one thing, which Livnat says players really enjoyed in the first game. The option to actually control creatures like trolls, liches, and undead knights is intriging as well. Fans of the first game should definitely pick up Monster Wars, and at the launch price of just 99 cents, this much content is hard for anyone to turn down.

While Monster Wars is only Liv Games' second title, Livnat himself has quite a few projects underway, both as partnerships with other companies and as projects he's working on with friends. It sounds like he and his team are pretty run off their feet (he happily showed me pictures of the crew working late during Macworld to submit Monster Wars to the App Store), but he also says he's not interested in giving up the company to an acquisition.

Legendary Wars did bring offers, says Livnat, but for now, it sounds like he's more interested in making games that people are really enjoying. Monster Wars has only been on the App Store for a little while, and already the reviews are filling up with lots of satisfied players. Liv Games seems to be doing quite well on all of its development so far, and it'll be interesting to see what Livnat and his burgeoning studio comes up with next.

Liv Games releases Monster Wars on iOS at Macworld | iWorld 2012 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 01 Feb 2012 01:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Apple relies on electronics assembly firm Foxconn to build iPads and iPhones in China. Now Foxconn is reportedly planning to build five new factories in Brazil to help meet the demand for Apple products. There's already one plant cranking out iPads and iPhones, and each of the new factories is expected to have about a thousand workers.

The exact locations of the new plants have not yet been decided, with officials from the Brazilian government and Foxconn planning on meeting after the Chinese New Year.

The Brazilian government wants the factories in the country: just last week, they approved tax reductions and exemptions that make it attractive for Foxconn to produce iPads in Brazil. A new "Inter-Ministerial Decree 34" provides excise tax, social contribution tax, and federal contribution tax incentives for companies investing in the research and development of keyboard less touchscreen tablets weighing less than 750 grams (the iPad 2 tops out at 613 grams).

In other Foxconn news, Chinese tech news site M.I.C. Gadget reports that thousands of Chinese citizens lined up for a chance to try for jobs at an iPhone plant in Zhengzhou. Despite recent Western press accounts painting the company -- and Apple -- as exploiting Chinese workers, there are literally tens of thousands of individuals who feel that a low-paying job in less-than-perfect working conditions is better than no job at all. The photo below shows part of the crowd waiting outside a labor agency in Zhengzhou to apply for the jobs.

Foxconn plans to build five Brazilian factories to produce Apple products originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

According to a report in China Daily, China Telecom may become the second Chinese wireless carrier to carry the iPhone 4S. The carrier reportedly released a press release on Tuesday with the big news. "China Telecom has already started preparatory work for the launch of the iPhone 4S," says the press release.

The CDMA carrier has the three operating licenses it needs from the government and could start selling the iPhone 4S as early as February. The Chinese government granted the final permit, which recognizes the device as qualified, on Monday says the website of the China Compulsory Certification Online Service Center. The other two permits were granted earlier in January.

This report shouldn't come as a surprise to those watching Apple closely. Several times last year analysts and Asian newspapers claimed the carrier is negotiating with Apple to get the iPhone on its network. The Cupertino company also views China as its next big market and hinted during its last earnings conference call that it would expand to another carrier soon.

[Via 9to5Mac]

China Telecom to start selling the iPhone 4S before March originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

I've found that iOS isn't the best platform (so to speak) for platformers. I love games like Mario and Sonic, where you drive a little character around, jumping between platforms and collecting goodies. The lack of physical buttons on Apple's touch screens (and let's face it: cheaper production values) make it hard to pull off a great platformer. Often times developers are forced to cut corners or really stretch to generate new ideas.

Not so with Paper Monsters (US$.0.99, universal). Crescent Moon's latest is a traditional platform game (complete with double jumps and warp pipes), and it plays that role perfectly. The little box-headed character can navigate the colorful and nicely-designed environments with skill thanks to some well-turned controls. The whole experience shines through the iOS platform right back to the classic days of 2D platforming.

There are some new tricks, too. At times, the action feels more like Little Big Planet than Mario's old adventures, with solid 3D graphics and some interesting twists, like playing in the background scenery.

Paper Monsters is a lot of fun, and there's plenty to keep you engaged through all 16 levels. It's available as a universal version right now for just 99 cents.

Daily iPad App: Paper Monsters originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 31 Jan 2012 08:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

There are tons of to-do list managers in the App Store, so many that you'd need another list manager just to keep track of them. Fortunately, a collaboration between Realmac Software, developer Milen Dzhumerov, and developer Phill Ryu's new studio Impending Inc. has created a to-do list management app that looks like it will make the rest of 'em obsolete. In the video embedded below, you'll see a quick demo of the gesture-driven UI that makes Clear so different from the competition.

TUAW App Editor Megan Lavey-Heaton and I spent a few minutes with Realmac Product Manager Nik Fletcher on the floor at Macworld | iWorld 2012, and we have since had the thrill of putting Clear through its paces. While this isn't a review, let's just say that I wish every developer put this much time and attention into making apps that are intuitive and simple to use.

Clear should be "shipping soon" at an as-yet undisclosed price. You'll hear about the release of the app as soon as it's in the App Store, and a review will follow close behind.

To-do list manager Clear demoed at Macworld iWorld 2012 (video) originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 30 Jan 2012 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Don Lee, CEO of Nomad Brush, was kind enough to meet with us for a few minutes on the floor of Macworld | iWorld 2012 last week to chat about his creation, which is one of the nicer brushes available for virtual painting on Apple's devices. Nomad's got a few different makes and models for various uses, but Lee says his goal for them is all the same: To provide a "good bridge between analog and digital painting." The brushes all do that -- they're solid brushes that respond well to the iPad's screen.

But what they don't do is what all brushes and styluses can't yet do, and that's invoke pressure sensitive information onto Apple's glass screen. Lee says that it's actually a choice on Apple's part. He says that the software can determine the size of a touch on the screen -- in other words, if your finger touches it only slightly, that's a smaller screen space than if your finger (or a capacitive brush) is completely pressed up against the glass. But Apple doesn't allow developers to take advantage of that information with their apps. "If they were to let that open," says Lee, he'd obviously be able to sell more useful brushes, but until then, brushes are basically finger substitutes, not the full tools they could be.

Now developers, being developers, have come up with lots of little tricks to get around this lack of pressure information. The app Zen Brush, which Lee says makes a nice example for his brushes, actually uses the speed of your finger swipe (along with "projected" virtual ink on the screen) to make a more realistic representation of how the brush would interact with an actual page.

Nomad doesn't have its own app, but Lee says the company "would love to talk to some developers" about possibly making an app built to work with its brushes. In the meantime, of course, they work just fine with almost any drawing app.

As for the brushes themselves, Lee says the biggest difference between them is basically just the size of the tips -- some are wider and better used at painting bigger strokes, and some are better for closeup work (only in the feeling, of course -- again, the size of the brush's contact on iOS' surface doesn't really matter, and all of the various brush settings have to be worked on in the actual software). But one thing Nomad is thinking about doing that customers have asked about is creating brushes with interchangeable tips, so that users can customize their handles with whatever brush they'd like to use.

There are a few different choices in terms of brush styli for the iPad and iPhone, but Nomad seems like a good option, and it was interesting to talk to Lee, who's actually an architect by trade. All of Nomad's brushes are available on its website now.

Nomad brushes with wide strokes at Macworld | iWorld 2012 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 30 Jan 2012 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Siri has been getting around lately. When she's not guest starring on popular sitcoms, she's apparently lending her vocal talents to the music scene. The Flaming Lips have produced an experimental song (embedded below) called "Now I Understand," which features both Siri and Erykah Badu as vocalists.

This isn't the first time Siri has been part of a musical collaboration. Just a few days after the iPhone 4S launched, musician Jonathan Mann (perhaps most famous to Apple watchers for the Antennagate song that Steve Jobs actually played at a press conference) posted his own duet with Siri.

To my ears, all these musical experiments show is how far we have to go yet before computerized voices sound truly human. Siri does a much better job than the Mac voices of the mid-1990s did on songs like Radiohead's "Fitter, Happier," but the voicing still sounds very artificial in a musical context. We're still a long way from the vibrant, natural tones of 2001: A Space Odyssey's HAL 9000 and his rendition of "Daisy, Daisy."

Then again, with so many human singers over-utilizing autotune and starting to sound more and more robotic themselves, perhaps all we're seeing with Siri is the next step in a weird human/machine convergence in the music world.

[via Electronista]

New Flaming Lips song features Siri on vocals originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 30 Jan 2012 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Koss headphones have been around a long time. I remember doing some pro recording with them in the 70s, and I know they go back at least to the early 60s. The company isn't stuck in the past, though, so it has announced a new version of the popular Porta Pro headset. It's called the Porta Pro KTC, which stands for Koss Touch Control. It's aimed at all your iOS devices, and allows you to shuffle songs, adjust volume and make calls from a small controller built into the headphone cord.

The Porta Pro is an on-ear design, featuring a collapsible headband and a carrying case. Last time I listened to the Porta Pros I found the sound quite smooth and the headphones were very comfortable.

There is no price announced for the Porta Pros yet, but the current model without the controller retails for US$50.00. The KTC model is expected to hit stores in early Spring.

[via Engadget]

Koss adds iPhone remote to Porta Pro headphones originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Foursaken Media is one of the most interesting companies I got to meet at last week's Macworld | iWorld 2012. It's made up of four real-life brothers who come from different backgrounds (one of them was a math teacher, and with their Dad a former band director and Mom a CS major turned nurse, they all have various affinities for art and technology), and have decided to release apps on the wild world of the App Store. The company has released a few games already, including the popular Bug Heroes, and the brothers showed me two more titles, one just released and one upcoming.

Mad Chef is out on the App Store now -- it's a very colorful little arcade game that has you tossing knives at food ordered by customers as they appear. The graphics are fairly goofy, but they're a nice fit for the action anyway, as you can do things like accidentally hit customers (making them walk away) and earn money and powerups at various restaurants, from a greasy spoon diner all the way up to a high-end steakhouse.

The other title the brothers showed off at Macworld was called Sky Gnomes -- it's a game they're still working on that features little gnomes falling on a snowball through the sky, which the player needs to guide around obstacles and into powerups and bonuses. The game looks like fun, and Foursaken is even planning some interesting multiplayer elements -- they're aiming to use ghosting to provide asynchronous gameplay, so your friends could record a run through one of the game's courses, and then you'd see them on your screen as you played, even though they aren't running at the same time.

There will also be elimination-style courses, and as you race, you'll be able to wear up to three trinkets at a time to boost your stats and abilities. Sky Gnomes seems like a lot of fun -- the brothers haven't settled on whether it will be available for cheap or free (with of course in-app purchases available), but it should be available on the App Store soon.

Foursaken's brothers seem like an interesting crew, and their games over the past few years have shown a lot of progression. We'll keep an eye out for Sky Gnomes and let you know when it hits the App Store.

Foursaken Media's four brothers take on the App Store originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Scalping of iPhones is a huge problem in both mainland China and Hong Kong. Scalpers, who will buy the iPhones at stores and then resell them at inflated prices, have exploited both the online and brick-and-mortar availability of the iPhone 4 and 4S and prevented non-scalping customers from having easy access to the devices. The overwhelming prevalence of scalpers in line at the iPhone 4S launch in China caused Apple to scrub the launch at its Beijing store, and the scalpers nearly rioted.

According to Electronista, Apple has apparently had enough of the situation and has instituted measures to combat these scalpers. Earlier this month, Apple suspended in-store sales of the iPhone 4S throughout mainland China, and that policy has been expanded to Hong Kong.

Apple's online Hong Kong store has instituted a lottery system designed to prevent scalpers from using automated services to make online reservations. Prospective buyers have only a three-hour window to enter the lottery; winners are notified later in the day and required to pick up the reserved iPhone the next day. Stricter identification standards are in force, including a requirement for a government-issued photo ID.

Time will tell if this will thwart scalpers and give everyone else fair and easy access to iPhones in China and Hong Kong. It's a fair bet that the scalpers are already looking for ways to defeat or exploit the lottery system.

Apple Hong Kong combats scalpers with iPhone lottery originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 30 Jan 2012 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Last week at Macworld | iWorld 2012, the imaging company Epson had set up a large area on the second floor to show off its latest product, the MegaPlex Digital Dock Projector. Epson makes a number of imaging products, including printers and projectors, but this is its first project driven by an iOS device. It's a pretty standard portable projector (in fact, I'd argue that the image and speaker quality on the projector are a little below standard, unfortunately), but the kicker here is that there's an iOS dock connector on the back, so you can plug in your iPad or iPhone, and any app that allows you to send video out can be shown off on the screen.

There are two versions of the project for sale, priced at US$799 or $699, respectively. The difference is in the display. The higher-priced version will output 720p video at 2800 lumens, and the less expensive model does 540p video at 2200 lumens. There is a panel of standard video inputs on the side, including RCA, s-video, VGA, and HDMI, so you can plug just about anything else into the projector if you happen to not be using the dock.

But there's also a handle on the unit, so it's a (mostly) portable way to show movies or presentations directly from an iOS device. It does that well, despite a tradeoff for image quality. The projector itself doesn't have any audio out to hook up to an external speaker, and while you could just use the iOS device's audio jack, that solution seems less than elegant.

Still, it was kind of impressive to see the iPad's output up there on the big screen though Epson's box. If you've been looking into low cost projector solutions, and wouldn't mind have the option to get video right off of your iDevice, the MegaPlex might be what you're looking for.

Epson shows off the MegaPlex Digital Dock Projector at Macworld | iWorld 2012 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 30 Jan 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The most recent episode of CBS's sitcom The Big Bang Theory rather prominently features Siri in its "B" storyline. Astrophysicist Raj, one of the show's main characters, buys an iPhone 4S and spends most of the episode interacting with the voice-activated "personal assistant."

As is typical for the show, Raj's interaction with Siri rapidly goes off the deep end; the character is notorious for striking out with women due to a psychologically-induced speech block when any females are nearby, but he has no problem talking to Siri. His interactions with his iPhone begin with the initial novelty that all iPhone 4S users likely experience when they first use Siri, but over the course of the episode Raj's attitude toward Siri starts to become increasingly creepier.

Both my wife and I noticed that Siri's real voice isn't used in the episode; we initially put it down to licensing issues, but it turned out there was an in-episode reason for using a human substitute for Siri's voice that pays off at the end.

When I watched this episode last week I thought this storyline was pretty funny (the half-bottle of Merlot I had with dinner probably helped), but watching it again now makes me feel more uncomfortable than amused. I get that The Big Bang Theory derives most of its laughs from over-the-top exaggerations of geeky behavior, but toward the end of this latest episode it got to be a little bit too exaggerated.

What's most interesting about this episode is that it must have gone into production not too long after the iPhone 4S was first announced, and probably no more than a week or two after the handset became available in the States. Within a relatively short space of time the show's writers managed to assemble most of the more humorous Siri interactions into a coherent storyline that's perfectly in line with the show's conventions.

A video of Raj's interactions with Siri is embedded below, or at least until CBS releases the hounds on YouTube.

Siri guest stars on CBS's Big Bang Theory originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Avatron's Elliot Chase just shrugs when asked about Air Dictate, an app his company had to remove from the App Store after Apple discovered it made use of Siri that they didn't approve of. "There's no good news," he said while talking to us at Macworld | iWorld 2012. The main issue is over Air Dictate's interface. Instead of using the standard, tiny Siri button on the native keyboard, Avatron hid the keyboard and used its own button. Apple would rather it used the standard UI, however unfitting. "If we make some changes, they might put us back," says Chase.

But outside of that issue, Avatron is continuing to update its popular Air Sharing and Air Display apps. In fact, the gang was showing off Air Sharing's beautiful new PDF viewer in San Francisco last week. It features an iBooks-style page flip and a scrubber for quickly scanning a document's pages. Chase said that many users are reading PDFs with the app, and his company saw an opportunity to create a better PDF viewer. The next update, which should be out soon, will add Egnyte to the list of cloud services that Air Sharing is compatible with.

Avatron is also working on Air Display updates. An Android version is in development, as is a Mac update that will allow it to work on older versions of Mac OS X . The current version requires the latest version of the Mac OS, but Avatron will release a downloadable version on its website that will work with previous versions, so you can share a display screen with your iPad from nearly any OS X build. There's a beta available now, but the software should be finalized in the next month or so.

Air Dictate was certainly a setback (Avatron even had the software's picture marked out on its booth at Macworld as "not available"), but it sounds like Avatron is keeping busy nevertheless.

Avatron soldiers on with Air Sharing after removing Air Dictate originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Glooko makes it easy for customers with diabetes to monitor their blood sugar on the go. The company's MeterSync Cable lets users share data between self-monitoring blood glucose meters and an iOS app, Glooko Logbook (free). Glooko recently raised US$3.5 million in funding, ensuring that development will continue on new versions of its products.

Glooko Logbook, which debuted in November, 2011, lets patients create a logbook of readings, monitor and annotate daily blood sugar levels and finally share the lot with a doctor. The app and cable solution supports several meters, and Bayer's Breeze 2 meter was recently added to the list.

We've seen other iOS solutions for diabetes patients over the years, including the iBGStar. Researchers at Northeastern University have even been testing an iPhone-readable nanosensor tattoo, but at far as we know, that's still an experimental device.

Glooko raises $3.5M for glucose meter iPhone app project originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 30 Jan 2012 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Those TUAW readers who haven't yet caught Siri fever and purchased an iPhone 4S won't have to wait if they finally decide to buy one. Electronista reports that the device is finally listed as "in stock" at the Apple Store for most countries.

As recent as two weeks ago, availability times were still in the three to five day range, but now the 4S is available immediately in every color and capacity. It appears that Apple has managed to get a good handle on iPhone 4S production, with 37 million devices reported as being shipped in just over three months during the first quarter results call. Part of the improvement is most likely due to the addition of Pegatron as a second manufacturer of the popular smartphones.

With supply finally meeting or slightly exceeding demand, Apple now has to keep a close eye to make sure that inventories of the phone don't start piling up. The company has a reputation for keeping minimal product inventories, so production is probably being tweaked to more precisely match demand for the iPhone 4S.

Apple lists iPhone 4S as "in stock" in most online stores originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 30 Jan 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.