Hasta La Gadget!

Apple banned an iPhone magazine app because it contained content related to using Android phones, according to the app’s creator.

Apple refused to approve the magazine Android Magasinet, a publication about Google’s Android OS, according to Brian Dixen, managing editor of Danish magazine publisher Mediaprovider.

Dixen said when he asked why, an Apple executive replied, “You know… your magazine… it’s just about Android…. we can’t have that in our App Store.”

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

File this under “trivial” for now, because it’s questionable why an iPhone owner would want to read an Android magazine in the first place. However, Dixen said he’s concerned about the implications that this incident poses about editorial independence in the App Store. I’d agree the implications are more concerning than the end result: As I’ve argued before, the issue of Apple’s editorial control is poised to grow as the iPad matures into a major publishing platform.

From Fortune

Photo: laihiu/Flickr

Apple last week rolled out a major update for its mobile operating system iOS 4, and among the new features is a nifty free tool: Find My iPhone.

As its name suggests, Find My iPhone is a tracking feature to locate a missing iPhone 4, iPad or fourth-generation iPod Touch. (Only the latest models get the free feature.) If you’ve dropped your iDevice in a cab, or if someone’s stolen it, you can hop on a computer to follow the GPS coordinates of the iPhone on a Google map (see above).

Or, if you’re just absent-minded like me and you misplace your iPhone as often as you lose your keys, you can use your computer to trigger a beeping sound to help you find it. It should be loud enough to hear from under a couch cushion. (You’ll never have to bug a friend to call your phone again.)

If you do indeed think your iPhone is in the hands of a thief, you can use Find My iPhone to remotely lock the device or wipe the data. Do note, however, that if you wipe the device, you won’t be able to track it anymore (hap tip to @shacker for catching that). Also,  a clever thief could just remove the SIM card, and you wouldn’t be able to track or wipe the phone.

Of the many new features in iOS 4.2.1, I found this one to be one of the sweetest bonuses. Find My iPhone originally was only available as part of a MobileMe subscription, which costs $100 per year. Making it free was a nice move on Apple’s part: An iPhone can potentially contain a treasure trove of personal information, so losing one is a big deal.

You need to activate Find My iPhone before you lose your phone, so do it now. Since the steps to turn this useful feature on aren’t immediately obvious, here’s how to do it:

1. Make sure you have the latest iOS update (iOS 4.2.1) installed. Plug in your iPhone and click “Check for updates” in iTunes to get the software.

2. With iOS 4.2.1 installed, tap the Settings app on your iPhone. Then tap “Mail, Contacts, Calendars” and “Add Account.” Then choose MobileMe.

3. In the MobileMe account menu, enter your iTunes or Apple ID and password (i.e., the login you use to buy iTunes media on the iPhone).

4. The “Find My iPhone” option should appear. Slide it to “ON” to activate it.”

And you’re done! From here on, you can hop on a computer and enter www.me.com in a web browser. Then enter the same login credentials you used to register for Find My iPhone, and you’ll immediately get a GPS reading of the phone, along with a simple menu of buttons allowing you to lock, wipe, or send a message or sound to the iPhone.

Update: Corrected an error that stated MobileMe costs $10 per month. In actuality, it costs $100 per year.

See Also:

• Apple iOS 4.2 Arrives, Makes Find My iPhone Free
• Apple’s ‘Find my iPhone’ App Almost Impossible to Use
• IPhone and iPad Lost in the Trash, Found With MobileMe
• Geek and Thief Come Face to Face Thanks to ‘Find My iPhone …

If you’re headed to the mall this weekend, Amazon’s new iPhone app might be an ideal companion for comparison-shopping and price checking.

As a bonus — for Amazon — the company has figured out a way to advertise its own products is everyone else’s stores, using a clever application that leverages the key features of smartphones — in particular, Apple’s latest iPhones.

Price Check for iPhone initially doesn’t seem very different from Amazon’s well-established, multiplatform “shopping cart” frontend, which has always allowed users to check prices and buy products on the go. The difference is the variety and speed of inputs you can use to find items in the store, which make the app particularly well-suited for using it while you’re standing in the aisle of a store, gazing at something you’re thinking of buying.

Here are the main ways you can use the Amazon app:

• Say It brings up a picture of a microphone with an “I’m listening” message. Speak a product’s name into the smartphone mic, and Amazon will try to find it. The speech recognition is a little iffy, and obviously homophones give it some trouble (my search for “Kinect” brought up “Connect Four”), but it’s generally pretty good.
• Snap It opens up your iPhone’s camera, along with a textual reminder that the service “works best in good light with a book, DVD, CD, or video game” — in short, media objects with well-established cover art that Amazon can try to match in its database (and Amazon says it’s steadily increasing the size and variety of this database). “Snap It” worked extraordinarily well with every book I tried in the decidedly poor light of my office.
• Scan It is particularly powerful, since it can use a product’s barcode to find a unique copy: it won’t confuse hardbacks with paperbacks, or widescreen and fullscreen copies of a DVD. But it requires an autofocusing camera to get high-quality resolution on the barcode — which means iPhone 4 or 3GS. My iPhone 3G has the “Scan It” button grayed out; if I click it, I get a short, apologetic notice that my non-autofocusing camera can’t scan a barcode, at least up to the standards of Amazon’s new app.
• Finally, you can also type in a product’s name in the “Type It” box at the top. Once you’ve found an item, you can browse specs and reviews, or share the price over email, Facebook or Twitter, or narrow the stores between Amazon and its partners (the “Prime” compatible button is quite nice.)

There’s also a handy list of “Recent Price Checks,” so you can keep track of products you’ve scanned, and a shopping cart, so you can buy products from Amazon directly. You can’t access your own wish list, which skews the app towards impulse buys or holiday shopping for other people.

When the app was first announced, I was confused; why was Amazon launching yet another shopping application for iOS? There’s the old standby Amazon.com, the Windowshop App for iPad and now PriceCheck? Did customers really need a whole page (or in iOS 4, a folder) devoted just to apps for Amazon?

Now I think I understand the strategy much better. Each Amazon application capitalizes on the unique hardware and anthropology of the device. Windowshop is a browsing catalog, suited to the full-sized screen and laid-back posture of the iPad. Even the name suggests voyeurism and fantasy. Price Check is mobile, pulling in camera, voice and autofocus to make something you can whip out of your pocket to make a snap decision while the Black Friday hordes crowd in around you.

Different devices, different scenarios, different shopping experiences — but all of them funneling you to just one store, up in the cloud. Smart. Now I wonder when and if other platforms (Android, Blackberry, etc.) will get their chance to play with similar new toys.

See Also:

• Amazon iPhone App Adds Barcode Scanning
• Amazon's iPhone App Remembers So You Don't Have to
• Amazon Shows Off Kindle for iPad
• Tablet Catalogs Rethink Casual Page-Flipping
• 'Apple Store' Application: Buy an iPhone with Your iPhone
• iPhone App Digitizes Brick-and-Mortar Coupons

John Gruber of Daring Fireball has synthesized some of the swirling rumors about Rupert Murdoch’s latest News Corp venture: The Daily, an iPad / tablet-specific publication that will cost real US money dollars. Add in a touch of his own sources and it’s a pretty interesting story, particularly when it comes to the future of publications and other “recurring” services on iOS devices. Gruber says that his sources (and he makes sure to clarify that his sources on this particular bit aren’t from Apple) say Apple is brewing up a new billing option for apps to allow for subscription payments through the App Store. That sounds kind of boring, but the lack of real automated payment has held back some publishers. Right now a user has to knowingly tap an in-app purchase every time they want to continue their subscription, instead of letting that monthly payment float into the back of the consciousness where publications want it, and Apple also restricts app builders from getting their payments outside of the Apple ecosystem. Word is that there could be an Apple event within the next few weeks to announce all this, though it seems a stretch for Apple to rally the troops for just subscription payments and a new pub that flaunts them. Maybe they’ll throw in a Verizon iPhone just for kicks!

Apple prepping App Store subscription payments for News Corp’s upcoming ‘The Daily’ pub? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Nov 2010 19:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oh boy, here we go. iOS 4.2 is out right now. iPad users finally get sweet, sweet multitasking, while everybody gets AirPlay awesomeness and Find My iPhone for free. More »