Apple

It’s been almost four years since Apple debuted its App Store platform for iOS (and then the Mac), and MacStories has an in-depth look back at that time. In just four short years, Apple has gone from saying that all we’d need on iOS are web apps, to a millions of dollars a year industry that supports almost half a million jobs. Needless to say, that’s phenomenal growth.

But what’s most interesting about the growth of the App Store is how the apps themselves have changed. MacStories writes about that initial push — in those early days, the quality of the software was very low, and there were a lot of “speculators,” for lack of a better term: Developers who just released quick and dirty apps (honestly, fart apps is what most of them were) to try and make a little bit of money. App branding, too, has come a long way. In the early days it was all about search and gaming the system, and these days, there are more ways to find good apps than ever.

At the same time, it’s also harder for developers to make their mark in an increasingly crowded market. Apple’s own success may be its biggest problem. The App Store has grown in a huge way over the past four years, and that may make it harder for both developers and Apple to figure out how to best run it going forward.

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Source: http://www.macstories.net/stories/four-years-of-app-store-de…

Article source: http://www.tuaw.com/2012/05/18/macstories-looks-at-four-years-of-the-app-store/

Sprint wants customers to buy the iPhone 4S and is offering a US$100 credit for the 4S to anyone who brings in an older iPhone as a trade. Details of this trade-in offer was published by TechnoBuffalo, who received it from a trusted source. This offer is supposedly available to both new and existing customers who agree to a new two-year contract and will last until June 30.

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Source: http://www.technobuffalo.com/companies/apple/sprint-to-offer…

Article source: http://www.tuaw.com/2012/05/18/sprint-to-offer-100-towards-iphone-4s-upon-trade-in/

As noticed by AppleInsider, the North Carolina Utilities Commission approved Apple’s application to build a 20-megawatt solar farm on land adjacent to its Maiden, North Carolina data center. The proposal was filed on February 15 and publicly announced at the end of March. It received no complaints and was approved by the Commission on May 14.

This approval gives Apple the green light to continue work on the solar farm, which will provide a portion of the power required by its data center. The solar array is expected to be completed by November and will start providing power late in December. Apple has said it will be the largest user-owned solar array in the United States.

Apple’s data center has been the target of several Greenpeace demonstrations around the world. The environmental activist group criticizes Apple for its reliance on coal and says the company could improve its usage of clean power.

[Via AppleInsider]

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Source: http://ncuc.commerce.state.nc.us/cgi-bin/webview/senddoc.pgm…

Article source: http://www.tuaw.com/2012/05/18/apple-receives-regulatory-approval-for-solar-farm-in-north-carol/

IK Multimedia’s iRig Mix mixer has finally arrived in stores, and it’s just as impressive now as it was back when we saw it in action at CES this year. The mixer is sturdy and impressively small, and it has hookups for two different sources, including two iOS devices or any other stereo input source, as well as an extra mic/instrument input. Those sounds can then be mixed together, balanced, or tweaked with EQ, and sent out to a headphone jack on the bottom, and a stereo RCA output on the top. In short, this is a great full-featured mixer for mixing together sounds from almost anywhere.

The biggest bonus here, however, is that the mixer also works with IK’s apps on the App Store, so downloading DJ Rig or any of the other apps will sound extra nice coming through this thing. And there’s an X-Sync feature built in to the mixer that works with the DJ app to beatmix for you, making for super simple DJing: Just start up the apps on your iOS devices, turn X-Sync on, and the mixer will beatmatch automatically.

The whole kit is very impressive, and even if you just need a mixer for occasional audio use (unrelated to your iOS devices), it would probably work great. Plus, it’s out now for just $99, and good luck finding an equivalent professional mixer at that price.

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Source: http://www.ikmultimedia.com/irigmix/features/

Article source: http://www.tuaw.com/2012/05/17/irig-mix-out-now-impresses-with-size-and-features/

Developers, musicians, and probably any other content provider in the U.S. iTunes Store have a new Apple policy to deal with this morning; you apparently can’t use the term “jailbreak” in a product description or name. If you do slip up, or happen to be like 70′s rock band Thin Lizzy and have a hit song and album by the name of “Jailbreak”, you’ll find that it has been censored by Apple.

Apple appears to be blanking out the word “Jailbreak” as J*******k in many cases where it appears on iTunes. Some Americans we’re talking to are not seeing the censorship, but we’re assuming that’s due to caching issues.

It’s not only in the music category; “jailbreak” is being censored on the App Store (above), in listings for TV episodes (including a G-rated episode of The Roy Rogers Show from 1951 — below), and even on a podcast on iTunes U about the Andy Griffith show. We’re not certain why Apple has chosen to do this — it could be that it’s an unintended outcome of trying to ban the use of the word on the App Store that went a little overboard. When the word “jailbreak” is outlawed, only outlaws will “jailbreak”…

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Source: http://www.macrumors.com/2012/05/17/apple-censoring-jailbrea…

Article source: http://www.tuaw.com/2012/05/17/apple-apparently-censoring-the-word-jailbreak-in-us-itunes-sto/