On Friday, AllThingsD reported on new statistics about the widespread use of Apple’s newest OS X update, Mountain Lion. The report mentioned that roughly 48 hours after the public release of OS X Mountain Lion, about 3% of total web traffic is coming from the latest Mac software.
Analytics firm Chitika conducted the research to come to this conclusion, estimating that Mountain Lion’s web traffic percentage increased from 0.25% before the public launch. This was likely the developer previews of Mountain Lion running prior to the release.
Moreover, based on Apple’s June 2012 announcement that there are currently 66 million Mac users in the wild, we can infer that 2.11 million Mac users downloaded OS X Mountain Lion in the past 48 hours,” Chitika said. “Using this figure, if we assume that 90 percent of these users paid to upgrade, OS X Mountain Lion generated $38 million in revenue for Apple in the past 48 hours.
It is unclear exactly how this compares to last years installation figures, which brought in one million downloads of OS X Lion on the first day of release.
With Retina Macbook Pro sales still increasing steadily and the company’s Up to Date program running, many users are either buying the MacBooks with Mountain Lion preinstalled or getting the update for free. OS X Mountain Lion brings key features to the desktop platform and blurs the lines between its mobile counterpart, iOS. Features such as Notes, Reminders, Notification Center, iCloud, and Dictation make OS X very similar to iOS.
{via MacRumors}
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Apple’s next version of OS X, 10.8 was released on Wednesday, adding over 200 new user features and bridging the gap between iOS and OS X. OS X Mountain Lion brought in a number of new features, but some of the more interesting and useful ones to note includes Messages, Notification Center, Notes, and iCloud. Some of the main features include:
With staple features such as Notes, Reminders, and Notification Center making their debut on the Mac, it is clear that Apple is continuing their “Back to the Mac” philosophy and learning a few tips and tricks about the preferences of users. It is clear that iOS devices have a much more widespread following and are easier to learn and navigate, and as a result, it makes sense for Apple to make OS X similar to the mobile software.
Apple’s OS X Mountain Lion is currently available only through the Mac App Store for $19.99 USD, the lowest price ever introduced for OS X software updates. OS X Lion has been enitrely removed from the Mac App Store and replaced with this new update.
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The London 2012 Olympics are under one week away now and if you’re not able to take the time off of work and sit down to watch 1,000’s of hours worth of sport spread over the two weeks then you may want to look into some of the iPhone and iPad offerings that are available to you to consume the games while you are out and about.
First up is the official results app which is a free app for both the iPhone and iPad which will enable you to keep track all the events as they happen.
The schedule page promises to keep you up to date with what’s happening and when including what’s coming up next. If you have a specific sport that you want to follow you can to and even set yourself reminders to be alerted before they start.
Full medal stats will be available here too and you can view the overall count, individuals and by specific sports. Also included is an extensive athlete database where you can view your favorite athletes, although if you are a fan of some of the smaller countries their teams are not currently updated, hopefully this will get updated. [App Store]
If you are more interested in competing, virtually, in some of the games yourself then the Official Mobile game may be for you. There are two versions of the the game a free version that allows you to progress using in-app purchase of a paid version where stars and stamina are pre-included, although you may still need to purchase more.
9 events are covered and as with many games of this type a combination of repeated tapping and timing is required to succeed in all of the events. You build up your athletes stats across 6 different categories and these in turn help improve your athletes results.
The game is fun and has its own built social aspect so that you can compare your best results with your friends, however it doesn’t use GameCenter so you’ll have to find and add your friends again.
The London 2012 Offical Mobile Game can be a little sluggish at times and the use of stamina will prevent you from playing the game as much as you would like, unless you are willing to purchase more via in-app purchase. [App Store]
If you are one of the lucky ones that will be attending the London 2012 games then the London 2012: Official Join In App for the Olympics and Paralympic Games app for the iPhone and iPad is a companion app for you.
This app will show you what is going on and where and not only includes the sports but also other events that are taking place in each area for when you aren’t watching the sports.
There is a lot of information in this app including information of travelling, safety, tickets and much more. If you’re going to be in and around London for the 2012 Olympics then this is a must have app. [App Store]
For our readers that want to follow Team USA you have an app just for you. 2012 Team USA Road to the London Olympics for the iPhone and iPad is the one stop shop for everything you need to know about your athletes.
With a frequently updated news stream you’ll always be up to date with what’s going on in all the sports that Team USA are taking part in helping you to keep you patriotic fever at a maximum level at all times.
The app is a little sluggish due to the frequent refreshing of data but the benefit of that is that it’s always up to date. You have access to the Team USA shop and in-depth biographies of all the athletes. [App Store]
Talking of the USA, if you are in the USA then NBC and their family of TV stations will be televising the London 2012 Olympics and they have a couple of apps for you to consume their coverage.
NBC Olympics is a app for everything about the olympics and including news, videos, photos, athletes and sports with a USA focus. There’s no live coverage in this app though, for live coverage you need to use the separate NBC Olympics Live Extra app.
The NBC Olympics Live Extra app allows you to watch the the events as they happen providing that you have cable or satellite at your home which includes the NBC family of channels.
Only time will tell how well the the app works when the live events start but one of the great looking features is the ability to set reminders to the live events so that you won’t miss out on them wherever you are especially as the video will stream over the cellular network but will obviously use a lot of data! [App Store]
For those of you in the UK you can download the BBC app which will include up to 24 live video streams of all the events as well as news, live text updates and details on all the sports.
The app is beautifully presented but at this moment is only available for the iPhone and not the iPad which considering that it includes live video streams is a little disappointing.
No separate TV subscription is required for this app but you will need to be based in the UK to watch the live streaming. [App Store]
If you want to enjoy the London 2012 Olympics along with the sports stars themselves then SportsStars is the app for you as it contains all of the social savvy athletes who are active of Facebook or Twitter.
As well as direct links to their social pages you can also view current news on each specific athlete and view the timetables for their events so that you know when to tune in to watch them. However, with around only 40 of the athletes being included in the app there’s no guarantee that your favorite athlete is going to be included. [App Store]
There are many iconic moments that happen in global events and the full impact of these moments can’t always be fully appreciated in video. However, photojournalists continue capture beautiful moments which can speak a 1000 words.
The Reuters Olympics London 2012 app collates these pictures into a single application for the iPad which groups these photographs by day and event and is visually stunning.
The pictures also have additional information alongside them and can also be shared via your social networks. [App Store]
It’s no surprise that there are multiple ways to get involved with the London 2012 Olympics and with this handful of iPhone and iPad apps you are never going to be too far away from the action.
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On Thursday, Apple announced the newest version of the Mac operating system, OS X 10.8. The newest version is being called ‘OS X Mountain Lion’, up from the current OS X Lion running on Mac computers. Apple has made a preview version of OS X 10.8 available to registered developers and will release the final version, with over 100 new features later this summer.
The release will likely be in late August, as usual, and will begin to ship with MacBooks and iMacs during the initial education sales and beginning of the school year, when Mac sales typically increase. SVP of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller commented on the release, saying:
The Mac is on a roll, growing faster than the PC for 23 straight quarters, and with Mountain Lion things get even better. The developer preview of Mountain Lion comes just seven months after the incredibly successful release of Lion and sets a rapid pace of development for the world’s most advanced personal computer operating system.
Apple launched OS X 10.7 Lion during their “Back to the Mac” event, bringing a number of iOS features back to the Mac in order to blur the lines between the two devices. With OS X Mountain Lion, Apple is pushing iOS integration to a whole new level, integrating a number of apps, including Messages (replacing iChat), Reminders, Notes as well as Game Center and Twitter integration.
Apple has also incorporated Notification Center from iOS 5, allowing the Mac to keep track of all notifications in one place. Prior to this integration, users would have to rely on third-party software like Growl for notifications. The Cupertino-based company has even brought over AirPlay mirroring, allowing users to mirror their Mac screen on their HDTV through the Apple TV.
The developer preview of Mountain Lion features the all new Messages app which replaces iChat® and allows you to send unlimited messages, high-quality photos and videos directly from your Mac to another Mac or iOS device. Messages will continue to support AIM, Jabber, Yahoo! Messenger and Google Talk. Starting today Lion users can download a beta of Messages from www.apple.com, and the final version will be available with Mountain Lion. Reminders and Notes help you create and track your to-dos across all your devices. Game Center lets you personalize your Mac gaming experience, find new games and challenge friends to play live multiplayer games, whether they’re on a Mac, iPhone®, iPad or iPod touch®.
It is very likely that if Apple were to release a television set, the mirror system would be more integrated between iOS and Mac devices. Apple has even went as far as to rename Mac OS X to just OS X, like they did from iPhone OS to iOS.
By integrating iCloud deeper into the Mac platform Apple is blurring the difference between iOS and OS X. The company is challenging the very basic traditional ways of computing and embarking on a new territory of true Cloud computing.
]]> https://touchreviews.net/os-x-mountain-lion-preview-100-features-inspired-ipad/feed/ 4It’s important to note that many new features introduced in iOS5 are just for iPad. TechZoom did a great job in publishing a complete list of new features in iOS 5 and here’s a run down of all the known features.
Many developers who installed iOS 5 beta believe that Apple might have not yet added all 200 features in recently released beta. Hence, the list above may not reach the 200 mark.
If you found a feature not listed above then leave a comment below and share it with us.
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Apple’s WWDC 2011 keynote just as expected focussed on software updates and cloud based services. Apple gave us an overview of Mac OS X Lion, announced iOS 5 and finally unveiled the upcoming cloud based service cloud iCloud. You can now stream the video online on Apple’s website (link at the bottom).
Mac OS X Lion will be available for purchase from the Mac App Store for $29.99 in July and iOS 5 is expected to be available this fall. iCloud is closely tied to the new software update and will provide seamless syncing between devices and the content you access most often.
It was widely believed that iOS 5 will introduce revamped notifications and include system wide Twitter integration and that’s exactly what Apple did. In addition to these the Cupertino based company has introduced iMessage (think BBM for iOS devices) which will allow you send text messages, photos videos, contacts and more to your friends and family who own an iOS device.
Apple has greatly improved the camera app and also introduced two new iOS apps called Newsstand and Reminders. One of the best features about iOS 5 is that now you’ll be able to wirelessly sync your devices with Mac or PC so no more using the same old USB cable.
There was no announcement related to new hardware so no iPhone 5 / 4S during this years WWDC keynote event.
Head over to Apple.com to stream the WWDC keynote event and let us know what you think about iOS 5 and iCloud.
]]> https://touchreviews.net/apple-posts-wwdc-2011-keynote-video-online/feed/ 0The best way to describe Calendars for iPhone and iPod Touch is that is it iCal for Google services. Aesthetically it is less garish than iCal. Which is a good thing. The colors used for the GUI tend to be less bright, and more pastel in shade. Functionality is almost the same as iCal. And graphically there is a little more glitz.
Calendars by Readdle is available for the iPhone, iPod Touch and compatible with the iPad.
Calendars fires up quickly, and offers a visual appearance which is more refined than iCal. It is very obviously modelled on a real world ring bound flip-over calendar. And all the rings and perforations in the pages are drawn as part of the GUI in a pleasing, and subtle way.
This attention to detail with the overall look made me wonder why the developers didn’t use Apple’s page flip animation for changing pages. That would have been a nice touch. Perhaps in an update?
Navigation from page to page is done by tapping right and left arrows at the top of pages, and again I wondered why Readdle didn’t get a little more creative here and allow us to swipe pages so that they flipped or rolled up and over.
Having said all that the functionality is quick, responsive and just fine in daily use.
To work with Google Calendars all you have to do is put in your account details and the app will sync with your online calendar automatically after you edit or create events, and on request. You can do partial updates and also full syncs. The latter taking a little longer.
You can add attendees to appointments, and also request SMS, email and on device alerts to remind you of upcoming appointments. The SMS alert only works if there is a number on file in your Google account.
Entering reminders, and appointments is simple, and employs the usual tumblers that we are accustomed to on the iPhone / iPod Touch.
Moving events around in Calendars is easy, and this is one of the nicer features. You can of course edit them manually using tumblers. But it is also possible to slide them around using drag and drop. In practise I found this worked most of the time quite intelligently. But occasionally when appointments overlapped I could get myself into a mess. But any confusion was soon sorted out with some more dragging and dropping.
When you change things the app will sync with Google if it has a network connection. This will sometimes cause the odd stutter in updates to the screen, or delays to information being updated. But nothing terrible.
Calendar is certainly a competent app. And I am the last one to argue that developers should be dropping their app prices. $6.99 is only the cost of a meal from McDonalds, after all. But when you can buy software like Apple’s iMovie for iPhone for $4.99, and there are other Calendar apps out there for less I think Readdle need to add some more pizazz to this app, or perhaps drop the price a dollar or two.
Still Calendar does what it says on the box. And quite well too. So certainly take a look if you are in the market for a Calendar app for your iPhone or iPod Touch.
Price: $6.99 (iTunes Store)
Category: Productivity
Updated: Jun 23, 2010
Reviewed Version: 1.0.2
1.0.2 (iOS 4.0 Tested)
Size: 3.6 MB
Language: English
Seller: Igor Zhadanov
© 2010 Readdle Inc.
Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 3.0 or later.