Despite criticism, Apple is beating competitors in supply chain efforts

The New York Times published an interesting article yesterday regarding Apple’s efforts to improve working conditions in its supply chain. But unlike the report it ran earlier this year, which largely criticized the company, this piece praised Cook’s team.

After doing a little research, The Times found that Apple is far more transparent with its overseas factory audits and is doing more to correct violations than any of its competitors. In fact, a majority of the companies won’t even comment on the matter…
Nick Bilton writes:

“Apple’s rivals are quick to say how much better, faster, cheaper or more popular their smartphones computers and tablets are. Yet when it comes to working conditions in the Chinese factories that build these competing products, Apple’s electronics rivals have been silent lately…

…In the last week I have asked Hewlett-Packard, Samsung, Microsoft and others about their reports on labor conditions. Most responded with a boilerplate public relations message. Some didn’t even respond.”

Bilton went on to quote the responses he received from different companies regarding their supply chain efforts. My favorite has to be the one from Mary Ellen Keating of Barnes & Noble who said “We don’t comment on our supply chain vendors.”

But at least they responded. Samsung wouldn’t even give a statement. Really? In this day in age, where Apple gets handed petitions with hundreds of thousands of signatures calling for it to improve supply chain labor conditions, you have nothing to say here? Wow.

Apple’s been publishing reports on its vendors’ labor practices since 2007. And it recently joined the Fair Labor Association to double its efforts. So why does it seem like Apple is the only company taking heat over supply chain conditions?

Fusion: integrate Facebook sharing into iOS 5 and more

Wouldn’t it be great if you could have Facebook integration that acted similar to iOS’ built in Twitter integration? Well, now you can.

Introducing Fusion — a jailbreak tweak that integrates Facebook, Foursquare, and even MySpace (obligatory lol) into your default Twitter composition pane. But the tweak doesn’t stop there, it also allows you to composes messages for all of the aforementioned networks using Siri.

Check out our full video walkthrough on this awesome jailbreak tweak inside…

The wonderful thing about Fusion is that it’s a totally familiar and seamless experience. You don’t have to do or learn anything new; it just works.

If you’ve ever sent a tweet before from an iOS 5 device, you can update your Facebook status or Foursquare info the same way. It’s the tight integration with the existing mechanisms that make Fusion such a wonderful tweak.

I know a lot of people have been dying for Apple to put native Facebook integration into iOS — well, Fusion is the closest thing to that.

If you have an iPhone 4S, or have managed to get Siri running on an older device, it also comes bundled with an AssistantExtension plugin dubbed Furi. With Furi installed, you can compose posts destined for multiple social networks using only your voice.

As if all of that wasn’t enough, the expansion possibilities for Fusion are virtually unlimited as far as supported social networks go. You see; each network is simply a plugin, and additional plugins can be created by any developer. In other words, with Fusion, your $2.00 investment need not necessarily stop there.

For less than the price of a venti latte at your favorite Coffee joint, you can have built in Facebook integration that feels almost Apple like. If you’re a Facebook fan at least, I’d say we have a sure winner on our hands.

Fusion can be downloaded from Cydia’s BigBoss repo starting now. Let me know what you think about it in the comments below.

Rockstar’s Max Payne to land on iOS April 12th

Attention iOS gamers, Rockstar — the makers of hit titles like Grand Theft Auto – has just announced that it will be bringing its popular third person shooter Max Payne to iOS this month.

The Payne franchise has had quite a run in the PC/console gaming realm, selling more than 7.5 million copies. And Rockstar is hoping that its popularity will transfer over into the iOS platform…
The premise of Max Payne is pretty easy to follow. The main character is essentially a rogue DEA (drug enforcement administration) agent who turns into a one-man-army vigilante after his wife and daughter are murdered by junkies high on a new drug.

According to the developers, the game has been completely optimized for iOS devices and will feature HD graphics, high-resolution textures, and user-customizable controls. It will support the iPhone 3GS, 4 and 4S, the iPod touch 4, and all three iPads.

Rockstar hasn’t announced prices yet, but judging by the company’s previous releases, we wouldn’t be surprised to see it priced at $4.99 when it hits the App Store next Thursday.

Are you excited to see Max Payne come to iOS?

Sparrow push notifications reportedly working for some users? [Updated]

It looks like the folks at Sparrow have started to enable push notifications for a handful of users. Perhaps this is a part of a larger rollout?

YouTube personality Duncan33303 has reported that push notifications are now working on his 1.1 installation of Sparrow, as have others.

According to a blog post on Sparrow’s website, the push update was supposed to be available in the next released of Sparrow, that being version 1.2. It appears, however, that the developers of the highly popular Mail app alternative may have included code in the 1.1 update to make push notifications work without the need for Apple’s approval…
As the developers alluded to on their blog post:

“Thanks to your amazing support, we feel confident that Apple might revise its position on the Push API. We’ll submit a version of Sparrow 1.2 including it. this might delay Sparrow 1.2 validation but we’re already working with some partners to include Push in future versions of Sparrow without needing Apple clearance. Push is coming. With or without Apple.”

…it looks like they’re at least testing the 3rd party push technology with some of their users. We’ve tried to see if we could replicate the push notifications, but we were unable to do so.

Prior to Sparrow’s release there was some concern that the app would be rejected by APple for duplicating existing core functionality. Those worries subsided after Sparrow made its way to the App Store back in mid-March.

Unfortunately, the release arrived on the App Store sans Push Notifications. This was due to Apple’s strict positioning on the usage of the Push API. Many have campaigned for Apple to change their stance on its usage, but Sparrow has acknowledged that if Apple doesn’t relent, they will take matters into their own hands.

In the meantime, you can check out our jailbreak how-to for enabling push notifications via a handy jailbreak tweak.

Are you receiving push notifications on your 1.1 Sparrow installation? Let us know if you are in the comments below.

You can read and watch our full review of Sparrow located here. One of our main gripes was the lack of push notifications. If Sparrow can solve this conundrum, then it would be hard not to recommend it over the stock Mail app.

Update: Matthew Panzarino is reporting that these are likely just local notifications. Still, progress.