Ping, Apple’s new social music site, has over 1 million users signed up in less than 48 hours of it’s going live Wednesday. The network allows users to share their iTunes purchases, songs and albums they like with followers and follow individual people that share their musical tastes as well as the Artists themselves.

Ping has some interesting features but needs some seriously maturation before it’s a serious competitor or even compliment to sites like Facebook or Twitter. Specifically integration with both of those would do me just fine. I actually noticed that there was a Facebook connect button on the main page of Ping when I first launched it hours after release, but it was removed soon thereafter. Apparently Apple had not gotten proper permission to use the Facebook connect feature, but logic says that it will return.

Regardless of the current feature-set, the turnover for users of iTunes activating Ping is pretty decent so far:

“One-third of the people who have downloaded iTunes 10 have joined Ping,“ said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of Internet Services. “As many more people download iTunes 10 in the coming weeks, we expect the Ping community to continue growing.“

Ping lets you follow your favorite artists such as Lady Gaga, Coldplay, U2, Jack Johnson, Yo-Yo Ma and more, to see what they’re up to, check out photos and videos they’ve posted, see their tour dates and read comments about other artists and albums they’re listening to. In addition, you can post your thoughts and opinions, your favorite albums and songs, the music you’ve downloaded from iTunes and the concerts you plan to attend.

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Post tags: apple, Facebook, itunes, ping, twitter

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It’s been confirmed via a promotional image on Apple’s UK website that the new iOS 4.1 for iPhones will be released Wednesday, September 8th. The new software contains some looked for bug fixes and a couple of new features including HDR Photo recording.

During Apple Special Event this week it was announced that iOS 4.1 would be released next week and includes fixes for the iPhone 4 Proximity Sensor, Bluetooth issues, and performance issues with the iPhone 3G.

Also new in iOS 4.1 is High Dynamic Range photos which takes three pictures at different exposures and combines them to produce the best output. Game Center, Apple’s answer to Xbox Live will finally make its public debut in the new OS.

Apple has posted the new iOS 4.1 GM Seed firmware and SDK for developers. They can be downloaded from the iOS Dev Center.

The SDK is build 10M2309 and the firmware is build 8B117.

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Post tags: ios 4.1, ios 4.1 release date, iPhone, release, update

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The Cydia app YourTube that enables downloading of viewed YouTube apps to your iPhone has been updated to allow downloading HD videos directly to your iPad or iPhone’s video library.

You can watch, search and browse YouTube from within the app and if you find a video that you’d like to watch later, you can download them directly to your device. What’s nice about the new version is the ability to add it right to the library of the Video app on iPad or the iPod app on an iPhone.

Apparently, YourTube is the first app to enable the adding of downloaded content directly to your iPhone or iPad’s video library, but it wont be the last. The developers have plans to add it to some of their other tweaks, including the very popular Safari Download Manager:

We’re proud to announce that YourTube has the ability to import downloaded videos directly into your iPod app! We call this new feature “Gremlin” and you will start seeing this in many of our tweaks on Cydia, including Safari Download Manager and Attachment Saver.

YourTube 2.0 is newly re-designed for iOS4. It includes a host of stability fixes, improved memory management, improved download speeds, and fixes for the nasty iOS4 sandbox. And don’t forget the ability to import your downloaded videos into the iPod library

You can purchase YourTube HD for the iPad from the Cydia App Store for $5 with the iPhone version to follow, likely for the same price.

YourTube and YourTube HD

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Post tags: download youtube videos, ipad, iPhone, video library, yourtube, yourtube hd

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This tip is especially useful if you have to call direct to corporate drownes buried deep inside the towering phone structure of a company. Drilling down through voice menu’s never made anyone happy but thankfully there is a way to automatically dial an extension for a number.

Most people don’t know that there is actually a provision made by most phone systems to accept a pause at the end of a number, then an additional input that it will accept as a user input. The pause command allows the phone system time to jump to another menu before they’re ready to accept another command. Here’s how to insert a pause, then an extension on the iPhone.

1. Head to the contact you want to add an extension to and edit the number.

2. With your number up and the cursor at the end, hit the +*# key in the bottom left corner.

3. Enter a “,” for every pause you want to make, then hit the +*# key again to switch back to the numbers and enter the extension.

4. If you need to enter multiple commands to get through a voice menu, just put an additional comma between each one.

Note: Some systems may require an additional amount of time to transfer a call, if you find that the commands are being entered too fast, just add an additional “,” creating a longer pause.

via[iPhone Download Blog]

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Post tags: add, contact, contacts, extension, iPhone, iphone tip, iphone tips, phone numbers, tip, Tips

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So you’ve just downloaded the most fantastic app in the history of humankind and you have to make it known that this is a five star app no doubt. Time to write a review! But how do you go about writing a review of an app for iTunes?

I actually had this question asked of me recently and I guess I hadn’t realized that the method for doing so could be a little obscure. If you delete an app from your iPhone, it will actually give you the option of giving it a star review. This is cool, but doesn’t give you the option to get a little bit more wordy about what you do or don’t like about the app. Chances are if you’re deleting the app from your phone you’re probably not all that happy with it anyway.

So if you have the urge to wax ecstatic about a particular app with more than just stars, here’s how:

1. Open iTunes.

2. Sign in to your iTunes account if you’re not already. Note that it must be the account that was used to purchase the app that you’re looking to review. Apple made this change a while back to prevent people who had not even used an app from flooding the store with bogus reviews. You can sign in to your account by hitting the sign in box in the upper right corner of the iTunes Store Window.

3. Search for the App you’d like to write a review of.

4. Once you’re on the App’s page, scroll down to the Customer Reviews section. You’ll notice that you can choose a quick star rating here as well if you wish.

5. Click on Write a Review, it will be the third option down.

6. Write the best review ever. Here are some tips right from Apple:

• Keep them short and to the point. Average Reviews are about 200 words
• Praise applications on their own terms, not at the expense of other apps or developers
• Take the time to spell check and grammar check your work ( no one does this, just read the reviews out there)
• No profanity or sexual language
• No harmful language related to religion, race or lifestyle

Being that the App Store is almost entirely populated with applications by smaller indie developers that most likely read their reviews, it’s likely that decisions about your favorite app’s future can and will be made by those developers reading the reviews posted on iTunes. This is probably the closest you’ll get to individually determining the path of a piece of software’s development, so it’s well worth it to take a minute to do so the next time you come across an app that you love, or hate for that matter!

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Post tags: app review, how to, iphone 101, iPhone Basics, itunes, write app review

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The new official Twitter for iPad app has arrived on the App Store with a bold new design and interface and tons of great features for power users. It’s one of the most unique looking apps yet on the iPad and offers the most complete Twitter experience you’ll find so far on the tablet.

Some of the cool new things you’ll find as you use the app is the very different sliding pane design, which takes some getting used to but becomes second nature after a few minutes of use. You also get some basic gesture controls, try spreading your fingers on a tweet to get more info about the tweeter or sliding down on a tweet with two fingers to read the entire conversation leading to that tweet.

Another thing that you’ll notice right away is that a lot of media that you would normally have to exit the app to view are shown right in the tweet view pane. This is a huge timesaver, especially for YouTube videos etc.

The sliding pane design does do some weird things that might throw users at first, in that it slides some of the content windows partially off the screen, to show you that they’re there but waiting for you to bring them back into focus with a slide of your finger. It’s something that I noticed in the Windows Phone 7 interface a couple of months ago and saw as an interesting way to show you interface elements are at the ready without “minimizing” them or removing them from your view entirely.

If you’re more in the market for a simple “feed only” app, then you might not take to the Twitter for iPad app like I did. If however, you follow a lot of people that share multimedia constantly and want an app that really takes advantage of the iPad’s screen real-estate, I would highly recommend checking it out.

Features:
● Realtime search, Top Tweets, trending topics and maps show whats happening now everywhere and nearby.
● Tweet, send DMs, share photos, videos and links to your friends and the world.

What’s New In This Version:
Twitter for iPad launches in this version:

What is Twitter for iPad? And how is it different from our iPhone app?
Twitter for iPad brings your Tweets together with web pages, photos, videos and more. Tap on any tweet, and a related content pane will open, displaying any linked content from the tweet, including web pages, profile information, hashtag searches and similar users. Slide panels from side to side and quickly navigate through related content.

There’s also easy ways to quickly peek into a tweet
● Pinch on a tweet to quickly unfold related information and actions
● Use two fingers to drag on tweet and reveal replies

Twitter [iTunes] Free

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Post tags: ipad, official app, twitter, twitter for ipad

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The New Apple TV has arrived, bringing with it a change to a completely streaming device with no internal storage for media, HD Movie rentals for $4.99 same day as home video release and .99c TV show rentals. It’s going to be available for $99 later this month.

Steve Jobs stated that the new Apple TV will have “lots” of  HD movies to rent, including first run movies for just $4.99. The TV show selection is a different story, because initially, users will only have HD TV show episodes to rent from ABC, ABC Family, Fox, Disney Channel and BBC America. More studios are anticipated to join in by Apple.

The biggest deal about his content is that it’s streaming only. No longer will you purchase any content. Instead everything is rented, including movies and tv shows. The new pricing, .99c per episode, means that you can rent a show three times before it becomes as expensive as purchasing it.

The new Apple TV also streams content from Netflix, YouTube, Flickr and MobileMe, as well as music, photos and videos from PCs and Macs to your HD TV. Jobs showed off the Apple TV creating realtime slideshows of pictures from a computer, streamed over an internal network.

Apple TV has built-in HDMI, Wi-Fi, Ethernet and an internal power supply and “very low” power operation in an enclosure that’s less than four inches square. That’s 80% smaller than the previous generation.

You have up to 30 days to start watching and then 48 hours to finish any of your rentals. You can watch them multiple times within that 48 hour period if you wish. Currently there are about 7,000 movies for rent, with over 3,400 available in HD, with most new releases available the same day they are released on DVD (or Blu-Ray).

Netflix has come to the Apple TV with a full set of features including the ability to browse and search, rate content, add to or remove from your queue, or instantly stream.

The Apple TV can still access YouTube, podcasts and personal photos from MobileMe and Flickr. Photos can be viewed on the Apple TVfrom those services using an automatic slideshow creation engine with multiple themes.

Music, videos and photos can also be streamed from PCs and Macs, but there’s no word exactly which formats are supported. I would assume that .mkv and Divx files would be out but I’m not sure as of yet exactly what you’ll be able to stream.

Pricing & Availability

Apple TV will be available late this month for a suggested retail price of $99 (US) and can be pre-ordered beginning today on Apple’s online store (www.apple.com).

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Post tags: airplay, apple tv, ethernet, hdmi, netflix

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You can’t do anything but walk around and gawk, but the tech demo that Epic Games showed off during the Apple live event today is available for download free from iTunes. It shows off just how amazing the iPhone 4 runs the super beefy Unreal engine.

As it’s outselling both of them combined, not would be a good time to grab it to see just how much better the iPhone is as a gaming platform than the DS or PSP.

Epic Citadel [iTunes] Free

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Post tags: apple, demo, epic, epic citadel, game, iPhone, sword, unreal

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The new version of Apple’s iOS software will be released next week and it contains some looked for bug fixes and a couple of new features including HDR Photo recording.

During today’s Apple Special Event it was announced that iOS 4.1 would be released next week and includes fixes for the iPhone 4 Proximity Sensor, Bluetooth issues, and performance issues with the iPhone 3G.

Also new in iOS 4.1 is High Dynamic Range photos which takes three pictures at different exposures and combines them to produce the best output. Also, Game Center will finally make its public debut.

Apple has posted the new iOS 4.1 GM Seed firmware and SDK for developers. They can be downloaded from the iOS Dev Center.

The SDK is build 10M2309 and the firmware is build 8B117.

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Post tags: bluetooth issues, bug fixes, hdr, hdr photography, ios, iphone ios, iphone ios 4.1, issue, photo, pictures, problem, proximity sensor

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iTunes has hit it’s 10th version today with an update that features many updates both major and minor; including a hybrid album art view, the iTunes Ping social network that lets you post your thoughts and opinions, your favorite albums and songs, the music you’ve downloaded from iTunes, plus view concert listings and tell your friends which concerts you plan to attend and HD TV show rentals for just .99c.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs had this to say about iTunes 10 and Ping:

“iTunes is the number one music community in the world, with over 160 million iTunes users in 23 countries, and now we’re adding social networking with Ping. With Ping you can follow your favorite artists and friends and join a worldwide conversation with music’s most passionate fans.”

Ping lets you follow your favorite artists to see what they’re up to, check out photos and videos they’ve posted, see their tour dates and read comments about other artists and albums they’re listening to. You can also create a profile on iTunes to let your friends know who you’re following, what you’re listening to and which concerts you’re going to. You can access Ping through iTunes or on your iPhone or iPod touch via the iTunes Store app. It remains to be seen how Ping will integrate with Twitter or Facebook. That’s what I think the true test of how people will adopt it will be.

As we previously conjectured, HD TV shows from ABC and Fox, including Disney Channel and BBC America will be available for .99c, many the day after broadcast. Watchable on iPhone, new Apple TV and iPod touch as well as your computer.

You have 30 days from the moment you rent an episode to start watching it, and 48 hours after that to finish it.

iTunes 10 also features AirPlay wireless music playback to listen to your music on remote speakers using Apple’s AirPort Express base station. Airplay has been renamed to indicate that you can also stream pictures and video as well as music and with iOS 4.2 in November, you’ll be able to do that to and from iOS devices like the iPhone and iPod touch.

iTunes 10 is available immediately as a free download at www.itunes.com.

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Post tags: announced, available, itunes, itunes 10, new itunes, ping, social music network

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