Apple posts guide to help new developers start creating apps

For those who have never dove into building iOS apps, it can be quite a difficult experience when first starting out. Apple has strict rules about what apps can and can’t do that can be easily broken. Luckily, Apple is pretty good about giving assistance to new developers.

To help new developers move onto the iOS platform, Apple has posted a stylish guide titled “Start Developing iOS Apps Today“, introducing them to what it takes to build an iOS app…
The guide starts with the basic of app development, like how to install Xcode from the Mac App Store and building your first iOS app. The guide then talks about basic coding language, frameworks, design patterns, and getting your app onto the App Store.

This isn’t Apple’s only step to help new developers. There are also many smaller posts available on in the Developer Center, from basic frameworks to how to use Xcode.

Apple makes guides like this available to continue the lockdown of their App Store. These guides clearly tell what’s expected out of developers when they submit an app to be reviewed by Apple, in hopes of less and less being turned down. An easier development experience for developers also means for more and better apps.

You can check out the full guide, whether you have a paid developer account or not, on Apple’s Developer Center.

Facing criticism, Foxconn raises worker wages by as much as 25%

Apple and its overseas manufacturing partners have been taking quite a bit of heat over the last month. Reports of underage employees, 60+ hour work weeks and other poor working conditions have been constantly grabbing headlines.

But just as we have reported on the bad things, we must also report the good. It appears that in the face of criticism, Foxconn, Apple’s largest supply chain partner, has decided to substantially increase its workers’ wages…
Reuters is reporting that Foxconn announced last Friday that it has raised the wages of its factory workers by as much as 25%. Junior-level workers at its Shenzhen plant now make 1,800 yuan per month, which is about $285 USD. While that amount may sound terrible by some standards, Foxconn says that the salary of its junior workers is “far higher than the minimum wage.”

The manufacturer also said Friday that it plans to “provide more training opportunities and learning time, and will continuously enhance technology, efficiency and salary, so as to set a good example for the Chinese manufacturing industry.”

Even if Foxconn is only making changes for good press — they’re still making changes. If nothing else, it’s good to know that consumer concerns about the poor labor practices in China are no longer falling on deaf ears.

But don’t misunderstand our praise for approval. There is still much work to be done.

Apple sold more iOS devices last year than it ever sold Macs

We don’t really need more proof that the iPhone and iPad are a success, but every now and then we still like to be reminded of it. This time, it’s Horace Dediu from Asymco that shares some incredible stats about the success of iOS.

To put things into perspective, Dediu created a graph that shows the cumulative sales of Apple computing products over the years since their launch. The conclusion is just breathtaking. More iOS devices were sold in 2011 than all the Macs ever sold…
Apple sold 156 million iOS devices in 2011, reaching 316 million cumulative iOS units ever sold. In comparison, it took the company 28 years to sell 122 million Macs. Unbelievable.

‘Screen Swipe Sounds’ adds sound effects when swiping between pages

It’s sure to be a battery drainer, but for those looking for sound effects while swiping between screens, Screen Swipe Sounds is an interesting solution.

For $0.99, the developer has provided over a dozen sounds and the ability to enable vibration when swiping between pages on your iDevice.

The only downside (besides the obvious battery issue) is that the sound selection is quite abysmal
I’m not normally someone who harps about battery life and things of that nature, but it’s obvious, if you have sound and vibration happening with every swipe of your Home screen, your battery isn’t going to last very long.

Battery worries aside, Screen Swipe Sounds is sure to appeal to many in the jailbreak community. It’s just too bad that the sound effects that come bundled with it are so utterly terrible.

If you’re interested and your device is jailbroken, head over to the BigBoss repo where you can download it.

What do you think about those “sound effects”?

Why the study showing that jailbreak apps leak less private data than App Store apps is flawed

Following the Path debacle which led the world to realize that many apps indeed upload some of your private data to their servers, much ink has been spilled about the subject. To the point that Congress sent Apple a letter to express their concern, but also to ask for more details about the situation. Apple later commented on the matter saying that apps will now need explicit user permission to access contacts.

In the meantime, a year-old study by a group of researchers at the University of California at Santa Barbara showing that jailbreak apps leak less data than App Store apps was uncovered. For a site like us, and for many jailbreakers alike, this study was a blessing as we could once again claim that jailbreaking can actually make your device more secure.

The problem is that this study is flawed and proves nothing…
Using a tool they developed (PiOS), the researchers analysed 825 free applications available in the App Store, and 582 jailbreak apps available on the BigBoss repo.

When an iPhone meets a Samsung Note

A couple weeks ago, Samsung spent big bucks to play a commercial during the Super Bowl for their latest device: the Galaxy Note, a 5.3-inch phablet (phone/tablet), powered by a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor, and 16GB of built-in memory. Oh yes, and I almost forgot. It also comes with a stylus!

The guys over at Joy of Tech imagined what would happen if an iPhone met a Samsung Note. Quite entertaining, and perfect to start the day on a funny note…
For those of you interested in reading more about the Galaxy Note, Walt Mossberg has a pretty good review up.

Rumor Roundup: what we think we know about the iPad 3 so far

To say that folks are anticipating Apple to unveil a new version of its popular tablet sometime in the near future is an understatement. The company has launched a new iPad during the first quarter in each of the last two years — folks are expecting it.

We’ve heard a lot of chatter over the last few months regarding what the new iPad will look like and what new features it will contain. We’ve heard so much gossip, in fact, that it’s been hard to keep track of it all. And that’s why we’ve put together this rumor roundup….
Hardware
As far as appearance goes, the iPad 3 is more than likely going to look very similar to its predecessor. We’ve seen multiple images of purported iPad 3 components — including an aluminum rear casing. And all signs point to an iPad 2-like form factor.

Most of the tablet’s updates are expected to be internal. The new iPad is rumored to feature a faster processor, more than likely the quad core A6, upgraded cameras, and according to a recent report from The Wall Street Journal, LTE technology.

Finally, there’s the screen. Out of all of the iPad 3 gossip we’ve heard over the last few months, the tablet’s display has been the most popular topic. And all roads lead to a staggering 2048×1536 Retina display.

Software
With over 3 betas released — the last one being over a month ago — there’s a good chance we’ll see the iPad 3 launch with iOS 5.1. We’ve heard a number of rumors regarding new features we could see in the update, including improved Siri functionality and system-level Facebook integration.

Speaking of Siri, there’s also a possibility we could see the popular digital assistant turn up on Apple’s new tablet. We’ve seen evidence of this in the iOS 5.1 betas, and Apple has every reason to want to include the popular feature in the iPad 3.

When
Given Apple’s previous iPad release cycle, the obvious answer to “when will Apple unveil its new tablet?” is early March. We’ve heard this timeframe mentioned in a number of reports, most notably from AllThingsD’s John Paczkowski.

If you’re looking for a more specific date, iMore is predicting that Apple’s iPad 3 event will be held on Wednesday, March 7th. Ex-Macworld editor Jim Dalrymple gave his “yep” of approval on the report, adding some serious weight to iMore’s claims.

Did you get all of that? If not, here’s a quick recap. The iPad 3 will look similar to the iPad 2 but feature several internal upgrades including a Retina display, quad-core processor, and LTE technology (for Verizon and AT&T at least). And it will be unveiled on March 7th.

Of course, all of this could be completely wrong. The truth is, we won’t know anything for sure until Tim Cook (or another prominent Apple figure) holds the tablet up on stage during the iPad 3 event. But so far, it sounds good to us.

What do you think of the iPad 3 rumors? Is there any features you’re hoping for that haven’t been mentioned?

SpotTweet: Will eventually allow you to tweet from Spotlight search. Hopefully.

SpotTweet is a promising tweak that has one small problem, it doesn’t actually work at the moment (at least it hasn’t for me).

SpotTweet is supposed to allow you to send tweets directly from the Spotlight search input box, and everything seems okay until you tap the send button.
The really nice thing about SpotTweet is that it retains your Spotlight functionality while allowing you to send out tweets directly from Spotlight. I realize there are many other provisions for sending tweets in iOS 5 these days, but I thought this method was a interesting use of available resources.

Sadly, while the oauth from Twitter appears to log you in fine, sending a tweet results in a log in error. I tried it with multiple devices and it yielded the same result.

SpotTweet can be downloaded for free on Cydia’s ModMyi repo. Hopefully it will be updated soon, as it would be sad for a tweak like this to remain unusable.

Have you experienced the same login errors?


Major retailers reporting iPad 2 supply constraints ahead of iPad 3 launch

Between all of the leaked components and developer chatter, we’re almost certain that Apple is preparing to unveil its next-generation tablet in the near future.

But in case you needed more convincing, 9to5Mac has uncovered further evidence that the iPad 3 is on its way. The site is reporting that several major retailers are experiencing iPad 2 supply shortages…
“According to a source familiar with Apple’s product distribution channels, the iPad 2 WiFi + 3G is constrained. Supply shortages span beyond Apple’s own distribution channels, though, as major retailers are reporting “out of stock” status for the 3G iPad 2. This includes, but is likely not limited to, Carphone Warehouse and Orange in the United Kingdom. Carphone Warehouse is reporting shortages of five out of six of their 3G iPad 2 models (everything but the black 64GB unit), and Orange UK is reporting shortages of half of the 3G iPad 2 SKUs.”

Why are iPad 2 shortages such a big deal? Well retailers typically see supply constraints of an item just before it gets refreshed. That means that production of the product, in this case the iPad 2 3G, has slowed or even stopped, in anticipation of the next-generation tablet.

So why does there only seem to be shortages in 3G models? There’s a good chance that Apple could be keeping its iPad 2 Wi-Fi model around at a lowered price point, similar to what it did with the iPhone 4. And it wouldn’t make sense to keep an expensive 3G model around.

Apple’s next tablet is expected to feature a number of hardware upgrades and could be unveiled as early as the first week in March. It’s safe to say that if you were thinking about buying a new tablet, you might want to hold out for a few weeks and see what Apple has cooked up.

WallpaperLog turns your iOS wallpaper into an active console log

Nerds everywhere rejoice! Filippo Bigarella, the jailbreak developer behind Springtomize 2 and other popular tweaks, has just submitted a new package to Cydia called WallpaperLog.

The new tweak turns your device’s wallpaper into an active console log, giving you a glimpse into some of the things that happen behind the scenes in iOS…
Even though you can’t see it, thousands of lines of code are constantly executing in iOS underneath its pretty user interface. WallpaperLog will allow you to see a small portion of that code — mostly low level events — in a live scrolling wallpaper.

We’re not sure how it works exactly, but the folks over at OSXDaily believe that the tweak actively scrolls through the /private/var/log/system.log file.

WallpaperLog certainly isn’t a high-profile, must-have tweak. But we have to admit it looks pretty cool. Filippo says it will be free, and should be available in Cydia shortly. We’ll let you know once it goes live.

What do you think of WallpaperLog?