Tapbots announced an update for its popular iOS Twitter client, Tweetbot. Updates include:

- New tweet detail view with inline conversations and replies (swipe right to left on a tweet for quick access)
- New gesture in tweet detail to get back to the timeline quickly (swipe left to right)
- New conversation view now contains both the conversation and replies (swipe left to right on a tweet for quick access)
- Ability to email conversations or post a link to them via Storify when in the conversation view
- Droplr Support
- Video thumbnails now have a “play” icon to differentiate it from image thumbnails
- Timeline sync bookmark icon is now an optional setting
- Reorganized tweet drawer (last two buttons have gone through some options reorganization)
- Added thumbnail support for Vimeo links
- Higher res image uploads when on wifi
- Hold down compose tweet button to quickly open last draft
- Support for $stock links
- Improved email format when sending tweets, DMs, or conversations as email
- Arabic Localization

Tweetbot for iPhone and iPad is available for $2.99 in the iTiunes App Store.

Skype, the popular videoconferencing app, has announced an upgrade to version 4.0 for iOS, featuring some interface tweaks and the ability to move the preview window.

What’s New in Version 4.0
-New feature: ability to move own video preview
-App auto restarts if unexpectedly shutdown
-Improved accessibility
-Improved stability
-New sign in screen
-Other minor UI improvements
-Bug fixes

Skype for iPhone and iPad are available as free downloads from the iTunes App Store.

How ugly are you? There are iPhone and iPad apps that will be happy to tell you. Dapper Gentlemen, makers of Ugly Meter and Ugly Meter Pro apps, sports over 5,000,000 users and made more than $500,000 on their ugly-determination apps.

The apps use the built-in camera on your iOS device, and, through scanning your facial structure and “using the mathematics behind the Golden Ratio,” the apps determine your degree of ugliness on a scale of 1-10 or 1-100 for the “pro” version. The user also is complimented with pithy sayings describing their degree of ugliness, such as “You’re so ugly, when your mother went into the labor, the doctors went on strike.”

Mentions on The Howard Stern Show, The Mike O’Meara show, and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno have only accelerated the app’s popularity, with the app taking in approximately $80,000 after a mention on the Stern show.

Ugly Meter Pro for iPhone and Ugly Meter for iPad are available in free, $0.99, and $4.99 versions from the iTunes App Store. There’s also a Mac OS version that an determine your ugliness right from your desktop for $1.99 in the Mac App Store.

Source: Daily Mail via TheNextWeb.

One of the sources told Reuters that any discussions would apply to its set-top box and also to upcoming devices that stream content. Apple is widely expected to unveil a full-fledged TV product later this year or in early 2013 to drive its next phase of growth and potentially revolutionize the industry.

Such an agreement would be complicated by EPIX’s already existing agreement with Netflix, whom EPIX pays to stream content to its subscribers. Apple has declined to comment on “speculation,” and EPIX and Netflix declined comment as well.

Rogue Amoeba announced version 3.0 of its Airfoil Speakers Touch application.  Airfoil Speakers Touch turns your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad into an audio receiver, allowing users to stream audio from a Mac or PC in conjunction with Rogue Amoeba’s Airfoil application.

New with version 3.0, with an in-app purchase, Airfoil Speakers Touch turns your iOS device into a complete mobile AirPlay receiver. This allows the users to stream audio from one iOS device to another, or enable the iOS device to be a direct destination for music from iTunes on your Mac or PC.

Airfoil Speakers Touch for iPhone, iPod Touch, and ipad is a free download from the iTunes App Store.

ZDNET reports that the app has been pulled from the App Store 6 days after it had been approved, citing use of private APIs, a no-no for iOS Apps.

If you managed to download the app before it was pulled, it will still work.  Although Apple is rumored to have technology to automatically remove installed apps, it has yet to use it.  Apps that are later discovered to have violated some guideline have been traditionally only pulled from the App Store without additional deletions initiated.

- Updated design and improved relevance of Discover stories
- Activity in Discover tab shows who your connections follow, updates to their lists, and which Tweets they retweet and favorite
- Spelling suggestions and related searches for search results in Discover tab
- Recent searches shown when selecting search box in Discover tab
- Username autocomplete and go-to-user when searching in Connect tab
- New push notifications for when your Tweets have been retweeted or favorited or when you have new followers
- New language support: Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Polish

Twitter for iPhone is a free download, available at the iTunes App Store.

Absent from that list continues to be China. Speculation has Apple’s trademark dispute with Proview over the “iPad” name as a possible reason for the delay, although Apple has traditionally placed China near the end of previous launch rollout cycles.

“On the one hand, we are trying to process this case, and on the other, we are working on encouraging both sides to settle,” Zhao Le, an official at the foreign affairs office of the Higher People’s Court of Guangdong, told Businessweek.

Another reason for the delays could be related to LTE. Apple’s new iPads use LTE for high speed cellular data, and China’s cellular networks have not adopted the technology, and are not expected to do so for at least two years.

Also, the new iPad has not yet received full approval for the LTE/3G versions, which is necessary for access to China’s cellular networks.

LinkedIn has launched a new version of its iOS app, moving to version 5.0.  This new version offers full iPad support, including support for the retina displays on the new iPad, as well as a new calendar feature.  Also, connected user updates are newly reformatted to a Flipboard-style format.

LinkedIn (iPad) (iPhone) is a free app available in the iTunes App Store.

According to a survey entitled an “Apple Ecosystem Study” released Thursday by the NPD group, 25% of buyers in the U.S. who purchased an iPad are first time Apple owners.

“iPad sales are growing much faster than any other Apple product has this soon after launch,” said Ben Arnold, director of industry analysis at NPD. “In fact, one-in-five Apple owner households has one— nearly equivalent to the number that own an Apple computer. This demonstrates the appeal of both the new form factor and Apple’s app ecosystem.”

Of the U.S. households that own an Apple product, 67% own an iPod, and of those 82% of iPod owners said they were introduced to Apple products with the media player.

“While over 70 percent of long-standing Apple owners began their relationship with the brand by way of the iPod, this number declines to just 57 percent among those entering the Apple franchise in the past two years. Newcomers to the brand increasingly turn to the iPhone or iPad as their first Apple device, which combined account for one-third of first-time Apple purchases since 2010.”

Via AppleInsider.

After Sprint announced today that they sold 1.4 million iPhones in Q1 2012 with 44% of those being new customers, CNET’s Roger Cheng reports on Sprint CEO Roger Hesse’s plans on sticking with unlimited data plans for iPhone users on the Sprint LTE networks.

If the next iteration of the iPhone arrives with LTE, Sprint will continue to offer a no-strings unlimited plan, CEO Dan Hesse told CNET. The company is already sticking with unlimited for its first batch of LTE phones, but it was unclear whether the offer would apply to next iPhone.

“I’m not anticipating the unlimited plan would change by that point,” he said. “That’s our distinctive differentiator.”

Currently AT&T offers unlimited LTE data only for grandfathered purchasers of unlimited data for the iPad.

Google today officially launched Google Drive, the company’s cloud based file storage solution for desktop and mobile devices.

With Google Drive, you can:
Create and collaborate. Google Docs is built right into Google Drive, so you can work with others in real time on documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Once you choose to share content with others, you can add and reply to comments on anything (PDF, image, video file, etc.) and receive notifications when other people comment on shared items.

Store everything safely and access it anywhere (especially while on the go). All your stuff is just… there. You can access your stuff from anywhere—on the web, in your home, at the office, while running errands and from all of your devices. You can install Drive on your Mac or PC and can download the Drive app to your Android phone or tablet. We’re also working hard on a Drive app for your iOS devices. And regardless of platform, blind users can access Drive with a screen reader.

Search everything. Search by keyword and filter by file type, owner and more. Drive can even recognize text in scanned documents using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology. Let’s say you upload a scanned image of an old newspaper clipping. You can search for a word from the text of the actual article. We also use image recognition so that if you drag and drop photos from your Grand Canyon trip into Drive, you can later search for [grand canyon] and photos of its gorges should pop up. This technology is still in its early stages, and we expect it to get better over time.

Drive is built to work seamlessly with your overall Google experience. You can attach photos from Drive to posts in Google+, and soon you’ll be able to attach stuff from Drive directly to emails in Gmail. Drive is also an open platform, so we’re working with many third-party developers so you can do things like send faxes, edit videos and create website mockups directly from Drive. To install these apps, visit the Chrome Web Store—and look out for even more useful apps in the future.

Users can receive 5GB of online storage for free, with packages of additional storage up to 1TB of online storage for $49.95. Users who purchase a paid plan receive upgraded Gmail storage to 25GB. Users can get started by going to the start page at Google.

Update:

Reviews for Google Drive:

The Wall Street Journal- Walt Mossberg

I can recommend Google Drive to consumers looking for cloud-based storage, with the added bonus of integrated editing, at lower prices. But the new Microsoft SkyDrive also seems worth a try.

EMJNMTMTVSZS

✔ Features
• Compare two typefaces by Juxtaposing
• Compare two typefaces by Overlaying
• Gesture-based specimen with clear vector graphics
• Terminology and basics
• Historical typefaces

Typography Insight For iPhone and iPad is 99 cents from the iTunes App Store.

AT&T reported its Q1 earnings today.

For its wireless division, AT&T sold 5.5 million smartphones, exceeding a first-quarter sales record set last year. 4.3 million of those activations were iPhones.

Both Android and iPhone device sales remain strong. iPhone sales were helped by AT&T’s 4G network, which lets iPhone 4S download three-times faster than other U.S. carriers’ networks. In the quarter, the company activated 4.3 million iPhones, with 21 percent new to AT&T.

Q1 Activations were lower for both AT&T and Verizon compared to last quarter, with Verizon activating 7.3 million iPhones in Q4 2011.

Apple stock as of late Tuesday morning was down over $11 per share as investors anticipate Apple’s quarterly earnings report after the markets close today.

iPhone Activations. (Source: AT&T Via Macrumors)

Is this a button for the new iPhone 5? Chinese parts site TVC-Mall.com lists these parts as being replacement parts for the iPhone 5. These buttons are the first parts under their “iPhone 5 Replacement Parts” category.

According to AppleBitch, TVC-Mall has previously stocked replacement parts for then-unreleased Apple parts, noting a Bluetooth assembly for the new iPad.

Source: AppleBitch via MacRumors.

Steve Boxer of the Denver Broncos video team prepares a bank of iPads for players and coaching staff. (Photos by RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post)

The Denver Post reports on the Denver Broncos’ initiative to replace printing out weekly play books amounting to over 500 pages each week for iPads which will carry the plays digitally.

The iPads will be used to document updates on plays and can be updated quickly, using an app called PlayerLync.

The iPads can be used by the ten up until kickoff, according to NFL rules. Previously, the NFL required that the devices can only be used until 90 minutes before kickoff.

The Denver Broncos are starting to use iPads to view game tape and their playbook, but the devices won't be allowed on the sidelines during games. Photo: RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post

The Broncos purchased 120 iPads with 64GB of storage and Verizon LTE 4G coverage.

9to5mac.com and Gizmodo pick up a Weiphone message board post detailing the steps on how to unlock a Jailbroken iPhone 4S using SAM, a Cydia package by Sam Bigner.

Note that this requires a Jailbroken iPhone and some expertise with Cydia. Perform this at your own risk!

Step 1

Go to Cydia and add repo.bingner.com as one of your app repositories. Search for Sam Bingner’s SAM package and install it.

Step 2

Click on SAMPrefs icon.

Step 3

Go to utilities. Select De-Activate iPhone. Make sure your iPhone is deactivated under More Information.

Step 4

Click on By Country and Carrier in Method. Then select your carrier.

Step 5

Click on More Information again. Copy your IMSI (International Mobile Subscriber Identity) in SAM Details.

Step 6

Click on Spoof Real SIM to SAM.

Step 7

Go to the main SAM menu and change the Method to manual. Paste the IMSI in the field.

Step 8

Connect the iPhone to iTunes. It will reactivate your iPhone.

Step 9

Disconnect your iPhone when done and quit iTunes.

Step 10

Disable SAM in the SAMPrefs app.

Step 11

Connect your iPhone to the computer. iTunes will start up and tell you it can’t activate the iPhone.

Step 12

Close iTunes and open it again.

Step 13

This time, iTunes will activate your iPhone and it will be unlocked! You will be able to turn off your phone and do whatever you want. The unlock will keep working, at least until Apple releases its usual countermeasures in a firmware update.

If your push notifications stop working, go to SAM again and click on Clear Push then connect to iTunes again.

Steps from Gizmodo.

In a report to AppleInsider, KGI Securities Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo reports that Apple’s only supplier for high-resolution retina displays during the first quarter of 2012 was Samsung.

Samsung is likely still the only supplier at this point, as Kuo reports that other suppliers LG will only begin to ship displays during Q2, and LG will not be able to ship displays at a “normal” rate until Q3.

Kuo commented about display supplier Sharp, “Sharp still has production yield and material stability issues unresolved due to the adoption of Oxide technology.”

Kuo had previously issued a report suggesting that 17″ Macbook Pros are near the end of its life.

Realmac Software announces an update of the Clear app to version 1.1, adding a “Shake To Undo” feature, a removal of character limits for unlimited typing, special themes including “secret” themes if you have the required apps installed.

Clear is available for a special price, 99 cents, in the iTunes App Store.

If you’re longing for nostalgia, or perhaps passed a Morse Code test to get an FCC or Amateur Radio license, Teletweet merges the old with the new. Your webmaster passed a 13 words per minute test about 20 years ago, but I’m back to the charts to see which dots and dashes make a a letter.

From the Macstories Review:

To understand how the app works, let’s take a look at the truly unique design, as it’s the app’s main feature and also the visual door to what it does. TeleTweet is an on-screen morsing station with a big paddle triggering the long and short morse signals and the corresponding sounds. The combinations of the triggered lengths are then converted into characters and appear in the post panel at the top of the screen. For users like me, who never used morse code before, there’s also a dropdown listing of all alphabetic letters and some useful special characters like “@” and their appropriate code. You can also bring up a “normal” QWERTY keyboard if you like — a feature which seems a bit useless to me, since you lose all the special features of the app, not just in usability terms, but also design-wise.

Teletweet is available for 99 cents in the iTunes App Store.