Facebook is beginning to introduce a new feature in the Facebook application for iOS devices that automatically uploads all photos taken on the iPhone, iPad or iPod touch to a private photo album on Facebook. After this, the user can then access all of their iOS images directly on Facebook and can choose which ones to share directly through their web browser as opposed to uploading individual images.

Facebook posted a page on their website, detailing the features of Photo Sync and how it works. Facebook uses background uploads directly through the Facebook application, entirely sidestepping Apple’s iOS 6 integration and special API’s. All users get a complimentary 2GB of storage to upload photos online.

This new feature allows users to manage their photos entirely online, with images being stored privately until the users chooses to share. The feature is not automatically enabled as that may cause controversy among iOS users, but gives users the option to enable it if they choose to utilize the Photo Sync service.

{Via MacRumors}

On Thursday, Google announced that they are bringing their popular Chrome browser as well as their Cloud service, Google Drive to iOS. Following the announcement, Google released an iOS app, condensing a number of features from the full sized browser and packing them into the app. Some of the main features brought over include incognito mode and tab syncing across devices.

The browser, although being entirely developed by Google still relies on Apple’s WebKit-based engine, which is required by Apple’s SDK. Google Chrome for iOS seems like the perfect addition to Apple’s successful iPhone, however, according to a report from NextWeb, the one setback of the app is that users cannot use Google Chrome as the default browser on the iPhone.

The biggest hurdle that Chrome features, of course, is that it cannot be set to be the default browser on iOS devices, a capability that Apple also reserves for Safari. So, while you can use the browser to your heart’s content, it will not be the default handler for any URLs clicked. That’s a huge hurdle to overcome.

Google’s Chrome Browser is great for users that also use the Chrome browser on their computer and want an easy way to transfer their bookmarks or want to be able to access their computer settings on their iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch. Alongside the Chrome browser, Google also released a Google Drive app, the cloud service the company introduced several months ago. Both the Chrome browser and the Google Drive app are currently available in the App Store.

{via MacRumors}

Earlier this month, rumors about Apple looking to release a standalone Podcast app were all over the web. On Tuesday, ahead of iOS 6 release date Apple released the Podcasts app, offering up a variety of features, previously within the Music app on iOS, with its own interface.

Apple released the app on the App Store early Tuesday as a free download, however, a redeem button within a app has led some users to believe that there may be paid podcasts offered in the near future.

Podcasts app is the easiest way to discover, subscribe to and play your favorite podcasts on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Explore hundreds of thousands of free audio and video podcasts from the Podcasts Catalog, and play the most popular podcasts, organized for you by topic, with the all-new Top Stations feature.

Features:

– Enjoy all of your audio and video podcasts in a single app
– Explore hundreds of thousands of podcasts including shows in over 40 languages
– Try the innovative new Top Stations feature to find new podcast series in a variety of topics, including arts, business, comedy, music, news, sports, and more.
– Browse by Audio or Video podcasts, or see what’s most popular in Top Charts
– Tap subscribe for your favorites and automatically receive new episodes for free as they become available
– Stream episodes or download to listen while offline
– Skip forward and back using simple playback controls
– Turn on Sleep Timer to automatically stop playing a podcast while listening in bed
– Share your favorite episodes with friends using Twitter, Messages and Mail
– Optionally sync your favorite episodes from iTunes on your Mac or PC
– Sync your episode playback for seamless transition between devices

The app offers all of the podcasts that were previously available through iTunes, but with a new interface and allows users to stream and download podcasts. Users can also sync podcasts across devices running with the same Apple ID.

{via MacRumors}

It appears that Instapaper has finally got some serious competition on it’s hands as Readability makes its standalone debut on the iPhone and iPad.

You may already be familiar with Readability if you’ve used some of the apps that it’s been integrated with and for me that’s Tweetbot so I’m already aware of how beautifully it rips out all the unwanted content from web pages to provide a greater reading experience.

Readability automatically turns web pages into a clean, elegant, single-column reading view. With beautiful typography provided by Hoefler & Frere-Jones, the reading experience in Readability is second-to-none.

What the standalone app adds though is the ability to sync those booked marked pages via a multitude of devices beyond that of your iPhone and iPad. This becomes especially useful when you are on your computer browsing the web as with the Readability addon you can add any page to all your devices at the click of a button for reading it later.

The app allows you to customize you reading experience too with a choice of fonts, sizes and a choice of day/night modes.

Readability is a free universal app and is available now and makes the reading experience on your mobile device a pleasure with a sleek interface.

Gallery

Apple Inc. (AAPL) recently launched a new TV ad called “Harmony” which in 30 seconds highlights iCloud service for iOS and OS X. AAPL has been posting a series of iPhone 4S ads which show the all-new voice assistant Siri and the much improved camera and now with the latest ad the focus has turned to iCloud.

iCloud automatically stores music, photos, apps, calendars, contacts, documents and keeps all your iCloud enabled devices in sync. When Apple introduced iOS 5 during WWDC 2011 Steve Jobs took to the stage to talk about iCloud and repeatedly said, “it just works”. The new TV ad in a similar theme conveys that iCloud is “Automatic. Everywhere.”

The ad begins with the all-new welcome screen in iOS 5 which gives you an option to use iCloud and then goes on to show an album being purchased on iPhone 4S which then shows up on iPad 2 and MacBook Air. Then photos, calendar, app purchases, contacts update and iBooks are all shown to sync between different devices.

With the introduction of iCloud users can not only keep their iOS devices in sync but can also backup to the cloud, set up the device without connecting to iTunes and with iTunes Match they can upload their entire music library to the cloud.

iCloud is a free service available on devices running iOS 5 or higher however, if you need to add more space for backup then you could purchase additional storage right from your device.

The 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.

Review

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.

Pros

• Looks Great.
• Switching from iCal to Calendars, and MobileMe to Google is seamless from a GUI perspective for users.
• Drag and Drop is fun.

Cons

• There are cheaper apps that have the same functionality.
• Some syncing stutters.
• Events that cross over from one day to another get truncated visually.
• Pages don’t flip over using Apple’s iPhone OS provided animations.

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.

Apparently the iPhone Wi-Fi Sync app communicates via a desktop client app, and the two work together to talk to iTunes, and spoof it into thinking it is connected to a device via USB in some way. There are various ways this can be done. But the end effect is an iPhone, iPod or iPad is talking to iTunes using the protocols it is supposed to.

At the time I had this to say:

Being pessimistic I can certainly see Apple taking a close look at how this desktop client bridges the connect between iTunes and the iPhone, and how the files are transferred. But it is certainly possible it is not breaking any rules that Apple has set, or are that concerned about enforcing. But app approvals are a rocky unpredictable road sometimes with Apple. And reasons given for rejection are not always very clear or transparent initially.

Even though we were optimistic about Wi-Fi Sync’s chances we always knew Apple would take a long hard look at it. And when they did, they rejected it.

Engadget have spoken to Greg and quote his version of the explanation he got from an unnamed Apple representative.:

While he agreed that the app doesn’t technically break the rules, he said that it does encroach upon the boundaries of what they can and cannot allow on their store. He also cited security concerns.

So there you have it. Clear as mud. But not a huge surprise.

Greg has subsequently released the App for $9.99 on the Cydia network. If your iPhone is jailbroken and you want this functionality it’s available there now.

Are you disappointed that Apple rejected this? Can we perhaps expect this to be provided by Apple in iPhone OS 4.x in future? Or not? Let us know in the comments.