Don't say good-bye to that obnoxious official Twitter app on your Mac yet. Though the awesome Tweetbot for iOS client has just been augmented with a brand new Mac release, the team has decided to post a public alpha for the time being, until they have a chance to iron out bugs and get much-needed feedback. Hype aside, is it all you've been hoping for? The unanimous consensus seems to be a resounding 'yes', and then some more. Read on...
Amazon is keen on taking its Kindle Fire tablet beyond reading e-stuff, listening to music and watching movies and has today announced GameCircle, a brand new application programming interface (API) for developers, with social gaming features akin to Apple's Game Center on iOS devices (and soon Mountain Lion Macs). It's got the basics nailed, the stuff like leaderboards and achievements. Amazon is hoping developers will quickly pick it up and enrich their Kindle Fire games and who knows, it may come in handy if the company decides upon releasing a phone of its own...
Google's been streamlining their confusing set of web services and mobile apps since Larry Page took over the reigns as CEO from Eric Schmidt last year. As part of this simplification of Google, the company just updated its Places app for iOS. It's now re-christened as Google+ Local and comes with a few new interesting features, including voice search and Zagat reviews...
Google's social thing, Google+, may be lagging behind Facebook (250 million users versus Facebook's nearly one billion globally), but the search Goliath has no intention of sitting on the sidelines.
Earlier this week, it announced that the official Google+ client would hit the iPad very soon and today the company took to the blogs to announce the official software development kit for iOS and Android.
Francis Ma, product manager with Google+, wrote in a blog post that Google+ platform for mobile is available beginning today in early developer preview...
I'm sorry for polluting your reading list with more Google news, but this thing warrants a quick mention. So we already told you about impressive Android stats, Google's own tablet called the Nexus 7, a new Android version (4.1, called Jelly Bean) that sports Siri-like features and a brand new native Google+ app for iPad and Android tablets. Google also surprised us with the coolest live tech demo ever: a parachute landing on the Moscone West building, seen through the eyes of the participants' Google Glasses.
By the way, Tweetbot developer has gotta win the coveted title of The Most Original Google I/O Review for his tweet. So, one thing that especially captured my imagination is this cool-looking accessory aimed at streaming media at your home. Classed as a yet another piece of hardware designed and engineered by Google, the Nexus Q sports unique industrial design calling for a round chassis which reminds me of a lot of a sci-fi-like alien probe. It's also got some noteworthy features, as seen in a video demonstration...
It looks just gorgeous on that Retina display, Google's Vic Gundotra said, just announcing a brand new native Google+ client for iPad. It's coming "very, very soon" to Apple's tablet and it's available now for Android devices...
Don't you just hate Facebook's iOS app, a glorified HTML5 web app wrapped with an Objective-C shell? We do: it's sluggish for a native apps and unresponsive more often than not. Facebook feels your pain and they're about to do something about it, allegedly re-writing the program from the ground up with speed in mind...
Facebook rolled out its Pages Manager app for the iPhone a little over a month ago. It initially came with a number of features to give folks the ability to post updates and photos on the go as your Facebook Page.
It also lets you get notifications on new activity, view Page Insights and respond, post and comment as your Page.
Today, the first official update has landed on the App Store, bringing with it a few noteworthy enhancements missing from the original release...
With iOS 6 being the main theme of tomorrow's keynote, Apple's chief executive Tim Cook, iOS boss Scott Forstall and marketing head honcho Phil Schiller (aka Mini-Me and Dr. No) will likely share stage time to announce the latest in Apple's mobile operating system powering the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. Feeling excited yet?
We're also keeping our eyes peeled for the latest iPhone and Apple TV developments and are expecting shiny new commercials (hopefully they do better than latest celebrity adverts), plus the usual dose of Apple's trademark one-liners, superlatives and hyperbolas.
Here's what we're looking forward to, some of the stuff we've been keeping our fingers crossed for and what the rumor-mill predicted would go down tomorrow...
Much of the talk concerning rumored Facebook integration in iOS 6 is centered around debating whether or not the feature will be baked deep into the bowels of the operating system. According to sources who spoke to 9to5Mac, that seems to be the case as Facebook integration in iOS 6 is said to be system-wide and apparently very similar to Twitter’s integration that launched with iOS 5...
An interesting scoop over at the New York Times, citing "people close to the company" as saying that Facebook is looking to launch its own smartphone by next year, apparently tapping the collective talent of Apple's former hardware and software engineers.
The social networking giant has already poached a bunch of engineers who worked on the iPhone and iPad projects. It's Facebook's third attempt at making a phone, one that'll undoubtedly add to bad blood that's been brewing between Facebook and Apple for quite some time now.
That said, a Facebook phone makes sense to us. The company pretty much sucks in mobile. Up until recently, they've been releasing and updating native applications for smartphones at a snail's pace. If a phone is what they need to gain more credibility in mobile, so be it - though Tim Cook won't like this.
This not-so-secret plan might also explain why a system-wide Facebook integration was a no-go in iOS 5, though code hooks are still in place. Let's also not forget that Facebook pulled integration from Apple's Ping social network for iTunes music.
Yup, looks like Apple can safely put Facebook on its growing list of powerful rivals, right below Google and of course Samsung...
We told you five days ago that Facebook was rolling out a brand new iPhone app to manage your Facebook Pages. The software originally landed on the New Zealand App Store and it obviously took longer than expected, but here it is finally so grab it quickly.
The app should be indispensable to anyone managing their own Pages on Facebook.
Unlike the official Facebook for iOS client, the free Pages Manager app lets you check out comments, drill through logs, post updates, get notifications on new activity and so forth...