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CSS Animation Making its Way To Safari

John Vinson — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 16:20:09 +0000

To enjoy most of the animations you see on the internet, you have to download the Adobe Flash Player. For some, this can be a hinderance, and if anything it leaves Adobe as the primary solution for web animation. Apple looks to be changing that, as they are going to implement animation through CSS.

They’ve already started it with mobile Safari on the iPhone. With support for the Mac OS X build of Safari soon to come. WebKit Blog made the initial find, and have already put the feature to interesting use. Of course, you’ll need to view it with your iPhone’s Safari.

This latest news has left a division in terms of whether people like it or not. For designers, it is a great advancement. Because you don’t have to implement Flash in order to bring animation to your site. For users it leaves a more mixed reaction. While some see it as an advancement, others wonder what this means in terms of having options to not view site animations. Some people just don’t care whether a site makes cool little movements or not. Hopefully, these questions will be answered as more information is released.

What are you thoughts about this? Are you liking that site animations are being expanded upon through CSS? Or could you care less about animations, and just visit sites for the content?

iTunes Upgrade, and DRM-Free Music

John Vinson — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 15:23:18 +0000

iTunes, and iPod owners have been begging for it, and Apple has finally delivered. As of yesterday, Apple is allowing iTunes users to download their music free of DRM. The change comes by way of iTunes Plus. For those who want to have their current library DRM-free, Apple is offering another solution as well. With iTunes Plus, users can upgrade their current library to DRM-free at $0.30/song.

The other big change coming to iTunes is the pricing structure, which will take place in March. Instead of having all the music at the standard $0.99/song, there will be three tiers. Depending on the label, and age of the track the new prices are, $0.69, $0.99, and $1.29.

There’s yet even more changes for iTunes, as it is now compatible with the 3G network. So, all of you iPhone users now have the ability to download iTunes tracks over wi-fi on your 3G connection.

Has anyone tried out the downloads over the 3G network to see if they’re working properly? What do you think of the DRM-free solution implemented by Apple? Will the new pricing tier be more cost effective for the consumer in the long run?

Apple’s Future In Gaming

John Vinson — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 16:33:31 +0000

It’s never been a secret that Mac users have always gotten the raw end of the deal when it comes to PC gaming. Very few developers give the Mac the time of day that it rightfully deserves. Now that video games have turned into the behemoth market that it has, can Apple change their fortune? My answer is that it looks like they might already be starting.

Fieldrunners, an iPhone Game App Was Rated #9 On Time’s Top 10 Video Games Of The Year

What might surprise most readers, is that Apple isn’t succeeding with gaming through their desktops, but their handsets. The iPhone and iPod Touch to be exact. I checked the App Store this morning, and over 2,800 games have already been added to the App Store. What remains to be seen is just how many are actually successful.

What is readily apparent is how many mainstream developers have been investing in developing games for the iPhone. SEGA, released Super Monkey Ball within a week of the App Store’s launch. Before this it had been exclusive to only gaming handhelds, and consoles. One of my favorite gaming franchises, “Sim City” will be seeing the original version ported to the iPhone.

The question that remains to be seen; is that if more developers are investing resources for the iPhone, will that translate to the Mac desktops? Only time will tell, but I see a bright future for gaming through Apple’s portable products.

iPod Nano Gets v1.0.3 Update

John Vinson — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 16:48:13 +0000

tuaw.com is reporting that the iPod Nano (4th Gen) has received its latest update. For those who haven’t upgraded to the iPod Touch, here’s what fixes you got coming your way.

* Support for Apple In-Ear Headphones with Remote and Mic (yeah, the ones we’ve been waiting for)
* Support for Apple Earphones with Remote and Mic
* Fixed instability issues when using Nike + iPod Sport Kit
* Added a setting to turn off Cover Flow when rotating iPod nano and a Cover Flow menu item under the Music menu
* When Shuffle setting is set to Songs, pressing play on a song in saved Genius playlist will now follow the Shuffle setting
* After playing a slideshow with TV out, Cover Flow album art is no longer distorted
* Waking iPod nano after hibernating no longer distorts photos
* Other minor bug fixes

iPod Touch 2.1 Update

John Vinson — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 13:45:38 +0000

For those who have iPod Touches, your first 2.0 update has arrived. There seems to be quite a few fixes with the current update. Here is the official list:

- Genius playlist creation
- dramatically reduced time to backup to iTunes
- improved email reliability, notable fetching email from POP and Exchange accounts
- faster installation of 3rd party applications
- fixed bugs causing hangs and crashes if you have lots of 3rd party applications
- faster loading and searching of contacts
- other bug fixes

Also, users have been reporting faster interaction with the touch screen. And finally small, but still recognizable interface changes.

iPhone users can expect to get their 2.1 update later this week. The patch looks to be nearly identical to the iPod Touch.

Official Pictures Of New iPod

John Vinson — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 17:41:13 +0000

Here are some official pictures of the iPod, from their media event. There have been no surprises as of yet, besides the rainbow looking iPod lineup

Apple’s Media Event

John Vinson — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 15:31:57 +0000

Later today Apple will be conducting their media event at 1pm eastern. Most of those who are in the loop are 99.9% sure that it will simply be Apple’s unveiling of the new line of iPods.

The iPod Nanos, if the rumors are true will be receiving a size bump from 4GB-8GB, to 8GB-16GB. There is also said to be nine different colors, giving the mp3 players more variety.

Of course anything could happen, and Apple could be dropping a huge news bomb on us all. I will post the news as soon as it drops later today.

Picture Of 4th Generation iPod Nano

John Vinson — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 18:31:44 +0000

What’s your impressions? Do you like, has it not changed enough for your tastes? Is it even real? If it is real, do you even care?

I personally can’t wait for the 4th gen iPod Nano. I definitely like the curved look to the body. Here’s hoping this picture is real, and isn’t some insane photoshop job.

iPod Nano Update Rumors

John Vinson — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 14:54:57 +0000

Kevin Rose is famous/infamous among the Apple community. He seems to get information before anyone, and is a pretty big thorn in Steve Jobs’ side. He now has new information released about the new up and coming iPod Nano.

- Revamp of entire iPod line.
- Small cosmetic changes to Touch, Nano to see significant redesign (see pic below).
- iPods to see fairly large price drops to distance itself from the $199 iPhone.
- iPod touch 2.1 software, iPhone to get update very soon after.
- iTunes 8.0 (“it’s a big update w/new features”).
- All of this coming in the next 2-3 weeks.

Here is a video of Kevin Rose explaining some of these new updates.

[via: Kevin Rose]

iPods Discontinued – New Models Coming Soon?

John Vinson — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 12:57:18 +0000

The rumors of iPods being discontinued have been started by AppleInsider. It looks as though Target has changed its status on current iPods from ‘available’ to ‘discontinued’. As someone who has worked in retail before, this generally means that (if the product is selling well), that new models are on the way. Depending on how many units are reported to have left, the closer the date for the new model is. If the old model is selling like crazy, they’re going to want to wait aslong as possible before discontinuing the new model.

The biggest rumor to come out of all of this is from Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster. He believes that Apple will be lowering the price of the iPod Touch to $199. The analyst also mentioned that there would be new iPod Shuffles, Nanos being released with more memory with the same price as the current models.

At this point though, it is all just speculation. But educated speculation.