Getting to know how Apple works doesn’t take a genius, it just takes someone who has been watching for a while.

The fruit

John Gruber has pointed out that there is low hanging fruit that Apple picks off every year with their iOS updates. Notifications, Multi-tasking, Copy and Paste, Folders, Faster Camera, an App Store are all examples of these features we could imagine were coming.

Now you have Siri.

The signs

Apple takes things one step at a time, they are the definition of Lean Startup. They test a product’s success, and if it does well, they add onto it. Siri is apparently doing well.

Tim Cook has revealed that Apple will launch a set of new features for Siri “in the coming months”, as it looks to build on the “unbelievable potential” that the virtual personal assistant has.

Ask anyone that uses Siri frequently and they’ll wish it did only one more thing: integrated with other apps.

Straight from Tim’s Mouth

Time Cook said:

It’s one of the most popular features of our most popular phone. But there’s more that it can do. And we have a lot of people working on this. And I think you’ll be really pleased with some of the things that you’ll see in the coming months, where the breadth that you’re talking about… we’ve got some cool ideas about what Siri can do. And so we have a lot going on on this.

It’s not all that often that a singular feature of a singular phone goes mainstream. Nearly everybody knows what Siri is if you mention it. Why? Because it’s the kind of computer technology that we dream of:

“This is something that people dreamed of for years,” Cook said,” and it’s here. and it’s here. It’s really here. Now yes, it can be broader, and so forth, but we see unbelievable potential here.”

So what’s the future of Siri?

Certainly the most obvious low hanging fruit is app integration. Using Siri to send a Tweet, read an IM, Shazam a song, save a note to an app besides ‘Notes’, check your Facebook notifications, or read to you your web traffic from Ego. Those are the possibilities with Siri that we would call ‘unbelievable potential’.

Image Source: The Loop

Talk about low hanging fruit for Apple. If you were going to add any social feature to the core of the iPhone operating system, wouldn’t it be integration with Facebook?

The problem

Apple is willing to add these services to the OS. Twitter found itself built in with the iOS 5.0 update. The results were intriguing, in that Twitter gained quite a few new followers.

Apple and Facebook have a bit of a history of not working well together. For example, iOS 5 has easy ways to share to Twitter but not to Facebook.

Tim Cook pointed out at the D10 conference, that Apple and Facebook have “their own way of doing things.”

Not in Apple’s Nature

It’s not often that Apple finds itself in need of another company. It seems that almost everyone is a Facebook user. Apple can continue without system level Facebook integration, but as Android and Microsoft add the service to their core, Apple will be pressured to follow suit.

Apple is going to find itself begging, not the other way around.

The solution

Apple is going to need to make things happen. Tim Cook seems to understand that the Apple users should trump any complications:

For us, we want to provide customers simple and elegant ways to do the things they want to do. And, Facebook has millions, hundreds of millions of customers, and so, anybody that has an iPhone or an iPad, we want them to have the best experience with Facebook on those platforms.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the way the negotiations are going, it is Apple that is bending to the will of Facebook.

Source: The Verge

iFixyouri sent to 9to5 Mac

The site iFixYourI sent 9to5 Mac the first round of pictures of the black iPhone. With a black backcase, and a black frame. What’s more interesting still, is the black coloring of the metal frame of the device in the picture.

9to5 Mac

9to5 Mac is raking in the pictures, and has already amassed a collection of which even The Loop would be jealous. The black back case from iFixYouri wasn’t the last.

They have a picture of what would be the next-generation iPhone front glass, as well as the frame of the device.

This adds to our report in which we claimed the new iPhone would sport a taller screen with the same width. Sources say that the new iPhone’s interface will be redesigned to take advantage of the newly available screen real estate. The screen resolution is said to be 1136 x 640, with a screen size of 3.999 inches (diagonally)

UBreakiFix

It didn’t stop with the iFixYouri pics. The uBreakiFix pictures are just as impressive and convincing. The aluminum backplate looks very nice – an Apple-esque design for sure.

I think that the pictures paint a simple picture:

• Taller iPhone with a bigger screen.
• Aluminum backplate (potentially unibody with the frame)
• Headphone jack on the bottom of the phone
• New, smaller connection adaptor

These are changes we won’t know if we like or hate until we have the device in hand. Let’s hope it’s not a Fall launch like the iPhone 4S. That would be quite the wait.

Source: Venture Beat

The supply chain has spoken again. This is a new one however. The new iPhone parts that are being shown paint quite a different picture from the existing iPhone 4 and 4S.

9to5 Mac reported that they received backplate components of the next-generation iPhone. It was only the black plate at first, but now they’re claiming to have access to a white one as well.

A large portion of the backplate is made from metal. It is unclear as to what the metal plate is used for or if it is merely for aesthetic purposes. They have also noted that the antenna for the phone has been molded into the backplate itself, thus creating a unibody enclosure much like they did for the MacBook lineup.

I always miss the aesthetics of the first generation iPhone. While it may look bulky and old, it always felt the best in the hand. With Apple’s aluminum manufacturing abilities, it’s surprising that the iPhone hasn’t moved in that direction.

With a more unibody like case, Apple could squeeze in more sizable components like a 4G/LTE chipset, and a larger battery.

The latest pictures from 9to5 Mac aren’t just the backplate:

The photos also confirm the smaller dock connector and it appears that the headphone jack has been moved to the bottom.

I’ve always loved that the headphone jack was at the top of the iPhone. I can see where moving it to the bottom might give the engineers a bit more leeway with components.

We’ll see what happens. This wouldn’t be the first time a phone design was made public sooner than Apple would have liked.

Image Source: 9to5 Mac

My increasing love for social media inspired me to integrate it into a recent book I wrote, Recovery: Finding Inspiration from Injury Tribulation. I wrote this book to help people through the painful recovery process from injury and surgery. I’ve had a total of fifteen shoulder dislocations and 5 shoulder surgery from my active lifestyle in action sports.

Instead of using my name as the author, I decided to use my twitter handle, @jakelarsen7. I put it right there on the cover so people immediately know that I am an active twitter user. On the back cover I put the hashtag, #recoverybook, so that people will use it when they tweet their thoughts on the book.

Inside the book towards the end I’ve encouraged the readers to reach out to me via social media and tell me their thoughts. I want this to be very active and engaging experience so that I can connect with readers.

Here are 7 simple ways that Social Media can help sell your book:

1. Created a Website/Blog as a central hub.
2. Designed some diagrams for Pinterest.
3. Produced videos my YouTube channel.
4. Set up an Email Sign Up for a Free PDF version of my book.
5. Integrated a QR code on the back cover.
6. Self Published with CreateSpace so the book is Available on Amazon.
7. Incorporated my Twitter handle and hash tag on the cover.

Hopefully you’re able to get some ideas for your own personal projects, whether it’s a product, service or a book. The Internet & Social Media is like the wild wild west; it’s open land to anyone who wants to take advantage of it. Nobody owns it and you can only benefit from it.

Let me know what makes you want to purchase something on the internet in the comments below. How does social media increase your sales? Sound off in the comments below.

There are certain to be many, if not hundreds, of photos released in the coming weeks and months of what the rumored iPhone 5 may look like (just as always happens in the time leading up to the launch of new Apple products) but 9to5Mac.com released several photos on Tuesday of what it says is the back plate of the next-generation iPhone expected to be released this summer.

The photos are available at 9to5Mac and show what appears to be both the back plates of a black and a white version of Apples next smart phone. Of course, the biggest rumor about the new iPhone is that it will have a larger display (4 inches diagonally, according to most rumors) but it is hard to confirm or deny that from the pictures posted Tuesday.

What we can see from the pictures, if they are in fact of new iPhones, is that there is a metal area on the back of the phone that covers about 85 percent of the rear portion of the phone. Additionally, it appears that Apple has launched the long-rumored smaller version of the dock connector, moved the headphone jack to the bottom of the phone, and made some slight modifications to the volume buttons on the side of the phone.

Of course, nothing will be official until Tim Cook and the Apple crew make an announcement later this summer, but it is a good sign that the rumor mill is churning and those who get their excitement from devouring every last rumor are certain to be satisfied in the coming weeks.

Every once in a while while I’m out and mobile I pull out the WordPress app. The app has been anemic at best, and almost worthless for me. But in a pinch it did the job.

Mobile Blogging

The iOS App Store version 3.0 of WordPress has just recently been released. The release number is a big jump, and I suppose should make a statement about the new features.

The goodies include push notifications, a swipe-to-moderate toolbar additional language support and last but certainly not least — a “vastly improved performance, especially for iPad.”

Moderation Toolbar

The comment list appears in a table view, and each comment is swipe-able to access to a moderation toolbar. Right there i the app you can mark comments as approved, spam or you can reply.

Push Notifications

For those of you running your own blog the push notifications can be especially nice. You can turn off email notifications, and rely on the app to give you news about comments.

It should be much easier to keep up with your WordPress blogs thanks to the app.

Improvements in Performance

The improvements are indeed impressive. The performance improvements on the iPad are clear. If you’ve ever used the app before, I think you’ll like it.

Although it’s still a pain to edit images on your posts or pages unless you are proficient in HTML.

The new update requires iOS 4.0 or later, and works with any WordPress blog running version 2.9.2 or higher. It’s a free download and is universal on the iPad and iPhone.

There’s been a lot of debate over what the perfect size is for a tablet and what is too big. Many argue that the iPad is just the right size. Some Android tablets are slightly larger, or slightly smaller, but nothing…nothing…has come close to match the “tablet” that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has hanging (yes, hanging) in his office.

Ballmer reportedly recently installed an 82-inch version of a Windows 8 tablet on his wall, and has used it to replace a wide range of other office appliances such as phones and note paper. The Verge posted a photo and story about the “tablet” on Friday.

Originally, The Verge and other tech blogs were reporting that Microsoft had plans to sell the 82-inch Windows 8 devices, with companies as their target customers. The devices would have been perfect in conference rooms, or as kiosks in lobbies for customers to interact with while waiting for meetings or appointments. Microsoft clarified later in the day, however, that they did not have plans themselves to sell the 80-plus inch versions of Windows 8 devices, although they said other vendors would have the opportunity to sell something that large as there would be a variety of case sizes available for Windows 8 hardware.

A large display with a range of app and communication capabilities could be a boon in an office setting, so I’m curious to see if the Microsoft OS-backed displays do become common in offices, especially in the tech world. What will be even more interesting will be the creative uses programmers come up with to display interactive content on the devices.

Over the next few years, I didn’t hear much from trackballs, other than the occasional gamer saying that trackballs were ideal for first-person shooters.

This weekend, however, the concept of a trackball mouse reappeared in my life in the form of a Kickstarter campaign where an inventor is looking to introduce a new video game controller that is half game pad, half trackball.

The controller, which doesn’t have a name yet, appears to essentially be a PlayStation DualShock controller with the exception of having a large trackball in place of the right analog stick. In a video demoing a prototype of the product, inventor Peter Von Buskirk shows off the controller’s ergonomic features and its quick response in a first person shooter game, from being able to navigate a character around a map to having intricate control over a sniper rifle (you know, the kinds of things gamers will need to have guaranteed as effective before investing in such tech).

Von Buskirk is seeking $125,000 to continue development of his controller, and if the trackball is really all that some gamers claim it is, this could be a project that catches on quickly. The noble part of Von Buskirk’s campaign, however, is that he wants to keep the manufacturing for all controllers in his hometown of Detroit. He acknowledges that there’s a lot of great manufacturing talent in Detroit, and the area has been hit hard by the economic downturn, so his desire to try and help the human condition in his community will bring a smile to your face, if not have you getting out your credit card to contribute to his campaign.

NBC reportedly will have two different apps that will be available on phones and tablets, and presumably the apps will be available for both iOS and Android. One of the apps will deliver live video and the other will compile highlight clips for viewers. The big headline of NBC’s announcement, however, was that every moment of every event would be available for streaming online, that is, if you are a subscriber of a cable or satellite TV service. All 5,535 hours of Olympic events will be available online, but users will have to log in and authenticate as subscribers of a pay service. Traditional TV coverage will also be available on NBC, NBC Sports, MSNBC, CNBC, Bravo, and Telemundo.

One other new aspect of this year’s coverage will be the inclusion of a 3D channel showing several events in 3D. This channel will be part of a partnership NBC has with Panasonic, however, the downside to the channel will be that all events presented on the channel will be delayed 24 hours.