Great video. Lovely tribute.

Panic, the makers of Coda, a popular development platform for web developers, just announced a new $9.99 iPad version and a second version of its Mac software. The demo videos (here and here) look delish.

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Recently launched on Kickstarter by startup Incident, the gTar is a completely digital guitar with a built-in iPhone dock that uses sensors to relay what you are playing to a specially designed iPhone app. Unlike ION’s Audio Guitar Apprentice for iPad that we showed you at CES, gTar has strings and a fretboard layout designed to feel identical to a traditional guitar. However, like ION’s product, the gTar is marketed as more of a learning tool than a replacement to your main axe and includes LED lights that show you how to play certain songs preloaded in the app. It would be nice to have a built-in speaker, but you can always go with a pair of Bluetooth headphones instead.

gTar has 34 days to reach its $100,000 funding goal, and you will have to pledge at least $350 to get your hands on one when it ships in September. The product will eventually hit retail for $450. The company also plans to release an SDK for devs interested in building apps for the gTar. The images below are courtesy of Engadget which had great things to say about the device after recently going hands-on:

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We all know there will be a day when the mouse and keyboard will become obsolete, but many think that day is far off. However, that day just might be here with a new project called “LEAP.” As first noted by The Wall Street Journal, the LEAP, developed by parent company Leap Motion, allows you to control your computer by only using your hand. It is a little hardware box as small as a stack of playing cards that sits in front of the computer monitor and tracks your hands’ motions. As you can see in the video above, this is great while playing a game or even browsing the Web. From the looks of it, the LEAP is also very cheap—currently up for pre-order on LEAP’s website for only $69.99.

The technology is very similar to Microsoft’s popular Kinect platform, which allows Xbox 360 and Windows PC owners to get active with their entertainment. Kinect has sold very well since its introduction in 2010, with a slew of games and apps that interact with the technology very well. Microsoft also makes the Kinect’s source code available for those willing to tinker with the code.

Apple is also tipped to be working on similar technology. Several rumors and patent filings over the years show Apple is working on 3D displays and 3D cameras to help capture motion from the body and hands. The technology is believed to one-day come to the rumored Apple TV set, and it could even land on iOS sometime in the future. Apple has also continued hiring for positions pertaining to 3D.

The LEAP is very interesting, and it will be cool to see how it works in real world scenarios. Obviously, gestures are not the best solution to every piece of work done throughout the day, but it can be a nice tool for some. Being priced at $69, I would say this is a relatively good deal. The website said there is only a limited amount available, so you may want to act fast.

Anyone buying? Check out the LEAP’s FAQ page for a little more on specifics.

via Nick Bilton

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Joshua Topolsky of The Verge recently sat down with Instapaper founder Marco Arment. For those unfamiliar, Instapaper is a popular app on the App Store that allows you to save an article or a piece of the Web for later reading. The app has a slick web interface that allows you to manage content, along with a browser extension that enables you to mark content easily.

In the interview above, we learn more about the economics of Instapaper, and how it has fared against the release of Apple’s Safari Reading List. Arment also shared why he has not released an Android app, calling the economics just not good. He also made a great point that not many Android users are actually buying apps. Instapaper is available on iTunes for $5, and Arment said that is a price most Android users just will not pay. He also said that Instapaper has been unfazed by the release of Reading List, along with the rest of the competition Instapaper is currently stacked against.

Furthermore, Arment helped found the popular microblogging website Tumblr. We learn about the roots of the company that currently gets about 13 billion pageviews per month.

You can check out the interesting interview above. What do you think, developers? Is it worth developing a paid app for Android?

Looking to usurp rival competitors like Spotify and MOG, Sony today launched its Music Unlimited streaming service as an iOS app. We told you in January that it was coming, but today the free app officially hits the App Store with subscriptions starting at $3.99 a month for varying access to the service’s 15 million+ songs and playback features. There is also a 30-day free trial of the premium service.

Previously only available to Android users and Sony products such as PlayStation 3 and Blu-ray players, the service offers two paid subscriptions options, including: a $4 Basic plan that provides basic channels and access to your own library; and a $10 Premium account giving you access to on demand playback for Sony’s catalogue, offline listening. The more expensive packages also offers the ability to create playlists, and access charts, new releases, and premium channels. Unlike Spotify, which recently debuted its iPad app, the Music Unlimited app does not have an iPad-specific version.

The Sony Music Unlimited app is available in the New Zealand App Store now, and it should hit the United States and other supported markets soon. As of March, Sony offered the service in 14 countries including the U.S., Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Spain, United Kingdom, Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. A full list of features for Basic and Premium subscribers is below:

Music Unlimited Features
- Stream as much as you want.
- Enjoy ad-free Channels programmed in a wide range of genres, moods, eras, and more. No skip limits.
- Listen to your personal collection of songs and playlists when matched via any PC using Music Sync.***
- Discover your next favorite song with Music Unlimited’s recommendations. Listen to your music from your iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.****

Premium Subscribers also get:
- Play any song on demand from the Music Unlimited catalog of millions of tracks.
- Add any song or album from the catalog to your personal library for easier access.***
- Add to and edit playlists you create on the Music Unlimited web application.
- Browse Premium Channels and the top songs in your favorite genres.
- Listen to new releases added weekly.

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Most would assume that the currently free on-contract iPhone 3GS will discontinue with the introduction of the sixth-generation iPhone later this year, but one analyst claimed its life would go on. According to Jefferies analyst Peter Misek in a note released last night (via Fortune), Apple signed an agreement “with a major global distributor” that will bring the iPhone 3GS to pre-paid carriers and developing countries for an even cheaper price. Misek said the 3GS would be priced between the $200 to $250 range, which is cheaper than the $375 price point that it is now priced at wholesale. The analyst further estimated iPhone shipments for the June quarter.

He said Apple would build roughly 28 million to 30 million iPhones during those three months. The iPhone has seen tremendous sales over the last two quarters: 37.04 million shipped in Q1, and 35.1 million shipped in Q2. The drop in Q3 is expected, because hype for the iPhone 4S is slowing down as hype for the rumored sixth-generation iPhone begins to build. The new iPhone is expected to go into production beginning in June, with a rumored October release.

The iPhone 3GS is currently offered free on a two-year contract with its successor sibling, the iPhone 4, which is offered for $99 on a two-year contract. If the iPhone 3GS is continued free in pre-paid markets, it may actually sell. However, it is not clear which pre-paid carriers will pick the device up as a pre-paid handset.

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According to a report from the China Daily, Foxconn is looking to invest $210 million in a new Apple production line that will be based in Huai’an city, China, according to the office of Taiwan Affairs today. The plant is expected to be relatively big in size, covering 40,000 square meters, with plans to hire 35,800 workers. However, it looks to be smaller than Foxconn’s other plants. When it comes to how much the plant plans to produce, the output from the plant is expected to be between $949 million to $1.1 billion yearly, according to the report.

It is not clear which Apple products are expected to be built in the plant, but construction will begin in October of this year, perhaps ruling out possibility of the factory producing the sixth-generation iPhone that is rumored to go into production in June. Manufacturing for the new iPhone will most likely take place in Foxconn’s main Shenzhen plant, where upwards of 200,000 workers currently work. Foxconn also opened a new plant in Brazil and a larger plant in Zhengzhou just last year.

The latest update to OS X Mountain Lion Developer Preview 3 seems to have partially enabled iOS-style automatic app downloads in the App Store. Like on the iPhone and iPad, when you buy and install an app on one of your Macs, all of your other Macs logged into the same App Store account will automatically install the app too.

Unfortunately, the feature does not seem to be working completely. While the App Store will still offer to enable automatic downloads (as seen above), it does not actually install anything when you purchase apps from another computer. However, it does apparently show the app as being installed when you view it in the App Store. There is a good chance we will see at least one more developer preview, or at least a GM, in the coming weeks that should fully enable the feature.

Thanks, Zach!