Edible Apple

Perhaps an iTV won’t be the next big thing Apple brings to the masses. Maybe, just maybe, home automation is the next big thing.

The Wall Street Journal is now reporting that Apple, Microsoft and Google are all interested in acquiring a home automation startup called startup id8 Group R2 Studios Inc, a company initially created by Slingbox Media Inc founder Blake Krikorian.

R2 Studios, which is developing home-media and automation technology, has remained largely mum about its plans but last year released an app that turns Android phones into touch panels for controlling heating and lighting systems wirelessly. R2 Studios also holds some patents related to controlling electronic devices and interfaces.

The status of the discussion and terms under consideration remain unclear. A deal may not happen and some talks may be preliminary.

via WSJ

Wired reports:

American Airlines and cosmetics retailer Sephora are among the big-name companies that have developed apps for Passbook and seen them downloaded by the tens of thousands since it was announced in June. Passbook also plays nicely with Eventbrite, Ticketmaster and Square. Apple doesn’t say how many apps have been developed for Passbook, but 22 are featured in the curated “Apps for Passbook” section of the App Store.

“We were amazed at the high uptake,” Phil Easter, American Airlines’ director of mobile apps said. “Apple has allowed an app developer like us is to put features right in front of the user where before, that space was off limits.”

The Verge reports:

Samsung had hoped allegations of juror misconduct would win it a do-over in the Apple v. Samsung case, but tonight Judge Lucy Koh put those aspirations to rest by denying its request. Samsung had accused jury foreman Velvin Hogan of intentionally hiding information about a lawsuit he was involved in with Seagate. Samsung recently became a primary shareholder of the company, providing Hogan a reason to be biased. As such, the company had asked for an evidentiary hearing — in which all of the jury members would be brought back to the courtroom to be questioned about what impact Hogan had on deliberations — as well as a new trial.

In tonight’s court filing, Judge Koh wrote that the discovery problem was the fault of Samsung’s legal team. Hogan admitted he worked for Seagate during the jury selection process, she wrote, providing Samsung with ample opportunity to discover the litigation if the company’s team had “acted with reasonable diligence.”

Looks like we have a mapping battle in our midst!

In a new update to both Photoshop  and Illustrator CS 6, Adobe has added Retina Display support.

With this update, customers can see more detail in images, text, and in the Illustrator user interface when working on high-resolution displays, including the new Retina display available on MacBook Pro. The HiDPI feature in Illustrator is currently only available on Mac OS. It is expected to be available in the future on additional operating systems.

Fortune has the tremendous scoop:

I don’t know if this is unique at this time in this industry, but there are companies that are clearly competing with each other [Google, Apple  and Amazon], with completely different business models.
I actually view that as a shame when you think about it that way. All the big technology companies are big because they did something great. I’d like to see more cooperation on the user side. The Internet was made in universities and it was designed to interoperate. And as we’ve commercialized it, we’ve added more of an island-like approach to it, which I think is a somewhat a shame for users.

So in light of that, Apple’s still a partner. It’s a competitor. You and Steve Jobs were friendly.
At times.

What in the world is this Nokia engineer doing?

Justin Angel, a Nokia engineer working on Windows Phone, has detailed how to compromise Windows 8 games revenue through in-app purchases. Angel highlights the Soulcraft Windows 8 game as an example of how Windows 8 users could potentially edit parts of a game to bypass having to pay for in-app purchases.

The process is a little complex for the average Windows 8 user, but the steps show the easy potential for piracy with Microsoft’s Windows Store approach. Windows games have been affected by keygens and patches for years, but Angel says “storing encrypted data locally, alongside with the algorithm and the algorithm key/hash is a recipe for security incidents.”

via The Verge

Note: the site is now down

AppleInsider reports:

The survey, by AlphaWise and Morgan Stanley, polled 1,568 heads of U.S. households regarding the “smart TV” market. It found that just 18 percent of homes have a smart TV, while 13 percent of respondents said they didn’t know whether their TV is considered “smart.”…

“This suggests that Smart TVs currently available on the market do not offer easy-to-use software to integrate Internet content into users’ TV experience,” analyst Katy Huberty said.

Based on this, she believes that the survey shows Apple has a strong opportunity to disrupt the TV market, similar to how the iPhone made Internet consumption via a handset relevant.

The survey found that 11 percent of respondents said they would be “extremely interested” in purchasing a so-called “iTV” from Apple, while 36 percent said they are “somewhat interested.” The name was used in the survey to avoid confusion with the current Apple TV set-top box.

Apple and Microsoft are tussling over Apple’s 30% cut from in-app purchases.

The NextWeb reports:

The difficulty began when Microsoft rolled out the ability for SkyDrive users to purchase more storage space on the service. From that point, the company was not permitted to update its application in the iOS App Store.

The reason? It doesn’t pay Apple a 30% cut of subscription revenue generated by the application through the paid, additional storage. Microsoft, TNW has learned, has a new version of the application ready to go, including a key bug fix that would rectify a crashing bug, but cannot get it through.

Microsoft does not appear keen to pay Apple the 30% cut, as it lasts in perpetuity, regardless of whether a user continues to use an iOS device or not, as the billing is through their Apple account.

Will you check it out?

Yahoo reports:

T-Mobile will likely start carrying the iPhone next year after its parent company,Deutsche Telekom, said it has reached a new deal with Apple.

T-Mobile USA had been the lone iPhone-less carrier among the four national wireless companies in the U.S. Although it has been possible to use iPhones on T-Mobile networks, customers had to provide the phones themselves. The phones also work at much slower speeds, though T-Mobile has been reshuffling its network to match or exceed AT&T’s data speeds.

The three larger carriers, AT&T Inc., Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel Corp., already sell the iPhone, as do many smaller ones.

Deutsche Telekom AG said Thursday that T-Mobile will add Apple products to its portfolio in the coming year. Though it didn’t mention the iPhone by name in its press release, that’s the product it is most likely referring to. It’s possible T-Mobile will also sell a cellular version of the iPad, as the three national carriers do.

Loren Brichter is sort of a legend in the iOS app developer community. After working on the original iPhone while at Apple, Brichter left the comfy confines of 1 Infinite Loop to pursue life as an independent developer. One of his first projects out of the gate was Tweetie, a Twitter client that quickly became a runaway success and saw the introduction of features – such as pull to refresh – that soon became commonplace in the industry.

In April 2010, Twitter acquired Tweetie and re-branded the mobile app “Twitter for iPhone”. Brichter also joined the workforce at Twitter where he put his talents to good use. A little more than two years later, Brichter left Twitter to pursue other projects, the first of which was the recently released game “Letterpress” which if you haven’t checked out yet, you better get on it.

In any event, Brichter recently sat down for a talk with GigaOm where the former Apple engineer discussed a number of topics, including his views on the recent ouster of Scott Forstall. Put simply, Brichter is pumped about Jony Ive’s new role in the absence of Forstall.

I’m excited about Ive” taking over the Human Interface group at Apple, where he will lead both industrial design and the design of the software that runs on it. “He has good taste.” He paused. “But more important than good taste, he has the ability to” — he points to the MacBook Air in front of me — “he’s true to the materials, to the medium he’s working in. One of my complaints about design of iOS is it’s doing things that aren’t true to the hardware.”

“My design goals with Letterpress were to do things that the graphics hardware was really good at. [Ive] is the kind of person who has the same aesthetic. It’s not superficial — he’d think about [the design of iOS and an iOS device] all the way through” not just make something that looked good, he said.

To date, Letterpress has been downloaded over 1 million times.