Edible Apple

Well, Apple’s Maps experiment seems to be off to an interesting start. While Flyover is certainly a sexy feature, there has been no shortage of folks who are already pining for Google Maps, arguing that for day to day use, Apple’s Maps effort has a lot of holes. From what we can gather, the bulk of these complaints seem to be coming from iOS 6 users abroad.

In any event, folks have already started compiling humorous, though probably aggravating if it affects you, photos of Apple’s Maps app gone awry.

Check out what people have been sending in over at the theamazingios6maps Tumblr page.

And as a quick example, here’s what Appel’s Maps app reveals (on the bottom) compared to what Google Maps has to offer.

Highlighting Google’s ongoing attempts to shore up and drastically improve on the core Android user experience, the search giant announced this past Monday that they were acquiring Nik Software, the development house behind a number of different photography apps including Snapseed for iOS, a mobile app which won Apple’s 2011 iPad App of the year.

To date, Snapseed has been downloaded over 9 million times and having just started using it a few weeks ago, I can attest that it’s pretty snazzy. While the photo filter effects and whatnot aren’t anything you won’t find elsewhere, the intuitive user design is what really separates this photo app from the rest of the herd.

Nik Software announced the acquisition on their blog 3 days ago:

We are pleased to announce that Google has acquired Nik Software. For nearly 17 years, we’ve been guided by our motto, “photography first”, as we worked to build world class digital image editing tools. We’ve always aspired to share our passion for photography with everyone, and with Google’s support we hope to be able to help many millions more people create awesome pictures.

We’re incredibly grateful for all of your support and hope you’ll join us on the next phase of our journey as part of Google.

All our best!

The Nik Software Team

It’s been said that the Nik Software team buit photography apps for photographers, and it’ll be interesting to see how Google incorporates the companies expertise and technology into its own offerings.

Lastly, Google’s Vic Gundotra had this to say about the acquisition.

Today I’m excited to welcome +Nik Software to the Google family! We want to help our users create photos they absolutely love, and in our experience Nik does this better than anyone. Check out the examples from some of the world’s greatest photographers, and you’ll see what I mean.

Now we all know that Apple isn’t really prone to the acquisition bug, but it’d be nice to see the company perhaps snatch up some of the more intuitive and polished iOS apps out there, photo or not, and integrate it into iOS. The company did their own take on Panorama, which is nice, but there’s a lot more Apple could do to its iOS photos app to really make it shine.

John Gruber had a great piece up last week comparing Amazon’s general strategy as it pertains to its Kindle hardware and its accompanying media content with Apple’s own strategy with respect to hardware.

Amazon’s approach to selling media is in many ways platform agnostic. You can read Kindle books not just on Kindle hardware, but everywhere there’s a Kindle app: iPad, iPhone, Android phones, Mac, Windows, and even in a web browser. You can read iBookstore books only on iPhones and iPads. That’s an appealing message.

Apple, Gruber writes, wants to sell as many as iPads as it can. But Amazon, in contrast, has two objectives in mind given that it sells hardware and media content.

It’s a heads we win, tails you lose strategy. That’s the brilliance. If you buy an iPad but use Amazon’s iOS apps to read Kindle books and watch movies through your Amazon Prime account, Apple wins but so too does Amazon. If you buy a Kindle Fire instead of an iPad, Apple gets nothing. Amazon wins so long as you consume media content from Amazon, no matter if you play it on a Kindle Fire or an iPad. Apple only wins if you buy an iPad.

Astute and spot-on analysis right there. Amazon has, to a certain extent, been ignored a bit when it comes to discussing the tablet race. And interestingly enough, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos views the tablet marketplace as a two-horse race with Apple and Amazon being the only two major players. And it’s hard to disagree. While Android tablets from the likes of Samsung get a lot of press, not many people are really buying Android-based tablets at all, save of course for Amazon’s collection of Kindle Fires.

So there you have it, two tech behemoths with decidedly two completely different ways to make money. Apple with its healthy margins on its hardware and Amazon trying to just break barely above even on its products and make up for it via volume and Amazon Prime subscriptions.

So which is best? Well with over $100 billion in the bank, it’s really hard to argue with Apple’s strategy, but it’s probably never a good idea to ever count Bezos and Amazon out of anything.

iOS 6 is now out and ready for download, and while the reviews are overwhelmingly positive, Apple’s new Maps app has been subject to a little bit of criticism, with some saying it’s a clear step backwards compared to Google’s own offering which previously came built into iOS.

Business Insider reports on an interview it conducted with Waze CEO Noam Bardin:

“One of the things that happened between Google and Apple, I believe at least, is that the value Google was getting out of the relationship was disadvantaging Apple to the point of saying, ‘We’re going to make a huge bet’,” Bardin says. “Their bet is that they can, within two years, build a product that will compete with Google’s ten years of experience in both search and maps, and navigation, and all of these different things together.”

That’s because maps are a core feature of many mobile apps, and the best way to integrate local ads is to display them on a map. According to Bardin, Apple hopes that its app can bring in more money than it did through its revenue share with Google.

Bardin tells us that maps is the second-most-used product after mail on mobile devices, meaning that there is a huge opportunity to make money.

“The importance of the map in the new mobile ecosystem is really what drove this decision [that] ‘we have to own this component’,” Bardin says.

Indeed, Apple spent a lot of money snatching up a few Mapping companies, and it’s really aiming for the starts trying to catch up to Google which has many more years of experience in the field. And sure, while Apple’s maps app has a sleek view and the ever-enticing FlyOver feature, some of the basic features people associate with a mobile Maps app have been a little askew on Apple’s own offering.

At the same time, this is Apple Maps version 1.0 and we can only hope that Apple will iterate rather quickly and fill in may of the holes in the near future.

Again, Apple’s bet that they can accomplish in 2 years what Google has been working on for 10 years is ambitious to say the least.

The iPhone 5 is hitting stores in just a day, and though it has a bevy of new software and design features, some folks are still yapping away calling it a boring upgrade. One “shortcoming”, if you want to call it that, is the iPhone 5’s lack of NFC support, you know the technology that would enable folks to purchase goods and services with their phone via having it connected directly to their checking or credit card account.

So why no NFC? After all, some Android phones have the technology built right in.

Well, former Apple employee Matt Drance lays out a compelling argument as to why it’s in Apple’s best interest to just sit tight and wait.

Behold the NFC issue. What can people do with it today? All we hear is what they should be able to do with it someday. Search the web for “near field communication” — the 2010 articles read exactly like the 2012 articles. And boy are they wordy.

It’s not the technology that matters — it’s the utility that the technology provides. There are plenty of solutions to the mobile payments problem. NFC has not delivered, and Apple has no incentive to change that. By shipping NFC in the current climate, Apple would implicitly take responsibility for making that technology a success. That means not just building a first-class iOS experience, but working with businesses to accelerate adoption around the world.

As it stands now, Apple has absolutely no problem selling the iPhone. Hell, it sold over 2 million iPhone 5’s in just 24 hours with some analysts expecting over 8 million units to find their way into the hands of consumers on this coming launch weekend alone. To that end, Apple is just fine keeping NFC functionality on the sidelines for now, and given its slew of NFC related patent filings and NFC personell hires I’m sure they’ll be able to implement it when the time ever does become ripe.

As Drance points out, Apple’s market dominance to a certain extent ensures that NFC won’t really become mainstream until Apple hops on board. And if there’s one thing we know about Apple, is that they do most everything according to their own schedule, everyone else be damned.

Lastly, Apple executive Phil Schiller even addressed the iPhone 5’s lack of NFC support last week, noting that “it’s not clear that NFC is the solution to any current problem.Passbook does the kinds of things customers need today.”

Microsoft reports:

We’re happy to announce that Office for Mac 2011 (version 14.2.4) now supports Retina display for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. Text everywhere is incredibly crisp and all key areas of the interface are now sharper than ever. We hope you enjoy this fantastic software experience!

As long as you have Microsoft AutoUpdate set to check for software updates automatically, you’ll be notified when this update is available.

Reuters reports that Samsung is planning to add Apple’s soon to be released iPhone 5 to its existing patent lawsuits against Apple.

The fresh legal step by the South Korean group comes as Apple booked orders for over 2 million iPhone 5s in the first 24 hours of its availability. The product is due to hit stores on Friday.

Samsung and Apple are locked in patent battle in 10 countries and the stakes are high as the two vie for top spot in the booming smartphone market.

Both companies are also raising marketing spending to promote their latest products ahead of the crucial year-end holiday season.

“Samsung anticipates that it will file, in the near future, a motion to amend its infringement contentions to add the iPhone 5 as an accused product,” the company said in a U.S. court filing.

“Based on information currently available, Samsung expects that the iPhone 5 will infringe the asserted Samsung patents-in-suit in the same way as the other accused iPhone models.”

Samsung said in a separate statement on Thursday: “Apple continues to take aggressive legal measures that will limit market competition.

“Under these circumstances, we have little choice but to take the steps necessary to protect our innovations and intellectual property rights.”

BBC has the scoop from across the pond.

iOS 6 is out and in the wild, and if you wanna find out what all the fuss is about, these comprehensive reviews should do the trick.

Dollars to donuts, you’re not going to find a more comprehensive review than Rene Ritchie’s iOS 6 review over at iMore:

Compared to previous versions of iOS, and compared to competing platforms, iOS 6 doesn’t have the same level of customer facing pizazz this year. Sure, there’s Do Not Disturb and the new Privacy features, FaceTime over 3G, Siri for iPad and iPod touch, VIP mail, Panorama photos, Safari image uploads, single-app-mode, and many small, satisfying gems, but making a new Maps app was a huge amount of work for Apple that couldn’t be spent elsewhere. And positioning Siri and Passbook for the future compromised Apple’s ability to deliver on the present.

So yes, iOS 6 is a software update divided against itself. But taken as a whole, as the sum of all its new and better features, it’s still strong enough to stand. Now that they’ve positioned the platform for the future, however, the bigger challenge Apple faces is nailing what comes next.

The London Evening Standard reports:

The iPhone 5 is faaast.

MacRumors reports:

As expected, Apple has just released iOS 6 to the public, making the download available to users of recent iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch models. Users can obtain the update either by connecting their devices to iTunes and clicking the “Check for Update” button or checking for over-the-air updates on their devices via Settings -> General -> Software Update.

iOS 6 is compatible with the third-generation iPad, iPad 2, iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and fourth-generation iPod touch. It will also ship on the iPhone 5, which launches on Friday, and on the fifth-generation iPod touch launching next month. The operating system arrives as the golden master build 10A403 for existing devices, and Apple has also posted a special 10A405 build for the iPhone 5 and a 10A406 build for the upcoming fifth-generation iPod touch.