Hasta La Gadget!

Details of the Garmin-ASUS breakup are slowly being revealed. We now know that ASUS has obtained exclusive rights to license Garmin navigation and location based services on its Android smartphones with a Garmin navigation trademark slapped on the back — other Android handset makers need not apply. ASUS will go back to selling its own-brand handsets in January, including models equipped with 3D for gaming and connectivity with ASUS ebook readers and tablets, according to DigiTimes. For its part, Garmin’s official blog says that it will be expanding its mobile application handset development by offering navigation and other applications through “certain consumer application stores.” According to DigiTimes, that means Apple’s iTunes App Store and RIM’s App World. So, in other words, Garmin and ASUS are still friends but are now free to date anyone they want, you know, except for anyone in eachother’s families. How mature.

Garmin navigation to be an Android exclusive for ASUS, headed to Apple and RIM app stores originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Oct 2010 01:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Garmin, DigiTimes  | Email this | Comments

So, you may or may not have noticed that this morning, Apple updated its own Apple Store app for the very first time, and version 1.1 has a little surprise. That’s right, in the ‘Reserve Products’ screen, the much delayed white iPhone 4 shows up as an option. Now, before you lose control of yourself, keep in mind that you can’t actually reserve one… yet. Of course, this could just be some sort of cruel glitch in the system, or it could be a tiny bit of evidence that the white iPhone is actually, finally on its way. At the very least, we know that Apple’s still thinking of it… just like us.

Update: Apple’s now removed the white iPhone 4 references, but don’t worry: we’ll always have that screen grab.

White iPhone 4 evidence shows up in Apple Store app’s update? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 26 Oct 2010 09:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Redmond Pie  |  SlashGear  | Email this | Comments

If you like your players orange and portable but don’t have a tablet, you may be in luck. The VLC Media Player app, which recently made the iPad a little more codec-friendly, is now available in the App Store for the iPhone (4 and 3GS) and iPod touch. This new version is also said to support even more file types, offer better performance, and allows for the deletion of files right through its own interface. It’s available now, so get downloading — your classic cartoons await.

VLC downsized to fit on the iPhone and iPod touch, now playing in the App Store originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Oct 2010 08:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Covering Web  |  iTunes  | Email this | Comments

No surprise that Apple’s new Mac App Store has a similar set of rules and regulations as the iPhone App Store, and we just got the full list. There’s nothing here that’s too different from the iPhone review guidelines, but it all seems terribly odd when applied to a regular computer, and some of the more restrictive policies have already drawn ire from developers like Mozilla’s Director of Firefox Mike Beltzner, who says the restriction against beta code won’t work well with the Mozilla “open beta” development process. That’s definitely a valid criticism, especially if the Mac App Store becomes the dominant way for Mac users to get apps, but there’s a crucial difference here: unlike the iPhone, Macs can run software from any source, not just the App Store. That means apps that don’t meet Apple’s Store guidelines can still be freely used by any Mac user without going through jailbreak hoops, and we think that’s an ideal compromise: it allows Apple to control much of the Mac experience, since developers will have a huge incentive to comply with the review guidelines and get into the store, but still allows other types of apps and utilities to flourish — including, say Firefox betas. (We might have written an editorial arguing for exactly this approach on the iPhone in the past, come to think about it.)

So with that said, let’s examine Apple’s Mac App Store Review Guidelines, which were just posted yesterday — you can grab the PDF here and read the whole thing, but we’re just going to break out the parts that seem more interesting or different than what we’ve seen in the past. Our biggest takeaway? Interpreted on their face, some of these rules would mean major Mac apps like Adobe Creative Suite 5 and Microsoft Office won’t be in the Mac App Store, and that’s obviously a problem. Read on to see what we mean.

Continue reading Apple’s Mac App Store Review Guidelines posted — will Photoshop make it in?

Apple’s Mac App Store Review Guidelines posted — will Photoshop make it in? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Oct 2010 16:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Mac App Store Review Guidelines (PDF)  | Email this | Comments

Given its success with the iPhone / iPod touch’s App Store, we can’t say an OS X version is entirely crazy — and neither can Apple, who just announced such an App Store for its 10.7 release, Lion. Here’s what we know so far: multi-touch gestures, app home screens, full screen apps. “Every app on the iPad is a full screen app,” says Steve. Auto save, apps resume when launched. Don’t expect on-screen multitouch, as Jobs is very much against vertical touching. “Touch surfaces want to be horizontal” — you can all but kiss those touchscreen iMac rumors goodbye. Just like iPad, there’s automatic installation, auto-updates, a 70 / 30 revenue split for developers, one-click downloads, and the license works for all personal Macs.

The App Store itself is a standalone app that looks a lot like iTunes. Apps are automatically dropped into the dock after download. Expect it to hit OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard users “within 90 days” from today. And developers? Apple’s accepting app submissions starting in November.

Update: Apple’s main site and developer site have been updated with App Store information pages, although there isn’t much new to see beyond what was announced at the event.

Update 2: From the looks of that image above, individual iLife and iWork apps will be unbundled in the future for separate purchase. We’re also wondering if this is the end of Apple Family Packs — volume licensing that lets you install one copy of Apple software on up to five Apple-labeled computers — after hearing Steve say that Mac App Store apps are “licensed for use on all your personal Macs?”

Check out our liveblog of Apple’s Back to the Mac event right here.

Mac App Store for OS X 10.6 and 10.7 unveiled, coming ‘within 90 days’ originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Oct 2010 12:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Apple, Apple Developer  | Email this | Comments