Tag: Apps

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Rage Against Patent Troll.

On Friday May 13th, 2011 some iOS App Developers revealed that they are being sued by Lodsys for In-App Purchases and Upgrade Links. This lawsuit baffles many developers since Developers are using API in iOS SDK provided by Apple for In-App Purchasing. Lodsys so far is suing the Developers, but not Apple.

Adam C. Engst provided a great analysis on the matter.

It’s entirely unclear why Lodsys has chosen this approach — their lawyers have undoubtedly read the iOS Developer Program License Agreement and know that the iOS developers can’t settle. And they’ve chosen such small targets that there’s no way they could even cover their legal fees with what they could squeeze out. The only strategy that makes sense is that by targeting small developers, they put additional pressure on Apple to settle quickly.

Apple should respond to this lawsuit even though it is not yet directed at them.

In the meantime, this is what the iPad think about Lodsys:

That makes a lot of sense.

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Tuesday Blues: Google I/O 2011, Microsoft Buys Skype, and Senate Hearing On Mobile Privacy.

It’s Tuesday and there are a lot of news coming.

Microsoft confirms Skype acquisition.
Some said that Microsoft were “tricked” into overpaying the acquisition. Om Malik brings up a few good points.

Google I/O 2011
Exciting event for Google Developers and Fans.
(Ed. – The message is: “People in the glasshouse shouldn’t throw the rocks.”)
Coverage by This is ny next.

Senate Hearing on Mobile Privacy
Apple and Google on hot seats regarding location data and privacy.
A Senior VP and a lobbyist testified. Guess which companies they are representing, respectively.
Coverage by This is my next.

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Apple Answers Questions Regarding iPhone Location Data.

Apple answers questions regarding iPhone Location Data through its Press Release page. To summarize Apple’s answers:

  • Apple is not tracking anyone.
  • The iPhone is not logging user’s location.
  • It is the database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers around user’s current location. Some are located far away from user’s actual locations.
  • This database is used to triangulate the iPhone location when Locations Services is running.
  • The current database is not encrypted, but protected in a different way. Next software update will encrypt the file.
  • Geo-tagged Wi-Fi hotspot and cell-tower data are sent to Apple in an anonymous and encrypted form.
    “Apple cannot identify the source of this data.”
  • The Location Data cache is stored longer than expected due to software bug.

Apple also mentions:

Software Update
Sometime in the next few weeks Apple will release a free iOS software update that:

  • reduces the size of the crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower database cached on the iPhone,
  • ceases backing up this cache, and
  • deletes this cache entirely when Location Services is turned off.

In the next major iOS software release the cache will also be encrypted on the iPhone.

“Next Major iOS Software Release” could mean iOS 5.

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What’s new in Adobe Creative Suite 5.5?

Adobe announces Creative Suite 5.5 today. What’s really new in Adobe CS5? There are numbers of new features and one of them is the one that Apple had been passive-aggresively defending against.

Powerful mobile application development
Build standalone applications targeted at multiple platforms using the new mobile support for ActionScript® and Flex projects in Adobe Flash Builder 4.5 Premium Edition. Leverage mobile-ready components optimized for performance and touch input.

Each Creative Suite edition boasts new different features:

I use Adobe Creative Suite 5 and wondering if I should bother upgrading to this new version.

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Latest Google Chrome Update Crashing in Mac OS X Lion.

Some people are reporting that the latest update to Google Chrome cause the program crashing in Mac OS X Lion. Some accounted that all latest release, beta and developer versions of Google Chrome are crashing in Mac OS X Lion. It is unclear what changes in Google Chrome caused the issue, but some also pointed out the problem can be averted by disabling extensions when using the release and beta versions.