MacRumors

As noted by our sister site TouchArcade, Apple yesterday issued a Tweet announcing that Cut the Rope: Experiments is the company's "Free App of the Week", discounted from its usual $0.99 price [App Store] for the iPhone version and $1.99 price [App Store] for the iPad version.

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While Apple has previously offered some apps for free through its App Store Facebook page, the new promotion directly through the App Store will make such offers more visible to users.

As the official App Store Twitter account posted earlier today, Cut the Rope: Experiments is their "Free App of the Week", which as far as we can tell is the first of its kind.

Now, don't get me wrong, Cut the Rope: Experiments is an excellent game and you should go download it immediately if you haven't already, no matter what the promotion is. But it will be interesting to see if this is something that Apple keeps doing each week, and I'd be curious to know how they decide on which games or apps to promote.

TouchArcade also notes several other tweaks to the App Store, including new "Editors' Choice" picks and the removal of the "Staff Favorites" section. In the U.S. App Store for iOS, Apple is currently featuring Facebook Camera [App Store] and Extreme Skater [App Store] as Editors' Choice picks on the iPhone side, with SketchBook Ink [App Store] and Air Mail [App Store] being highlighted on the iPad section of the store.

ios app store editors choice
As noticed by The Verge, the Editors' Choice terminology has also been picked up in the Mac App Store, with Cobook [Mac App Store] being the initial recipient of the designation. Deus Ex: Human Revolution [Mac App Store] has also been made an Editors' Choice pick, but there appears to be no Free App of the Week in the Mac App Store to correspond with the feature on the iOS side, although Cobook is a free app.

152516 apple logoApple's board has decided to award dividend equivalent payments to employees holding restricted stock units or RSUs. Apple announced a quarterly dividend of $2.65/share in March, to commence in July. RSUs are typically issued to employees to encourage them to stay with the company. They are awarded in a similar way to stock options, but convert directly into shares of stock upon vesting.

Apple CEO Tim Cook was awarded 1 million RSUs upon his promotion to CEO last year to entice him to stay with the company for the foreseeable future. Half of the shares vest in 5 years, and the other half in 10. Cook has specifically declined the dividend equivalents, turning down more than $75 million in dividend payments over the life of the RSUs.

From an Apple SEC filing today:

On May 24, 2012, the Compensation Committee (the "Committee") of the Board of Directors of Apple Inc. (the "Company") approved amendments to each outstanding and unvested restricted stock unit award granted by the Company to its employees (other than Timothy D. Cook, the Company's Chief Executive Officer). The amendments provide that if the Company pays an ordinary cash dividend on its common stock, each award will be credited with an amount equal to the per-share cash dividend paid by the Company, multiplied by the total number of restricted stock units subject to the award that are outstanding immediately prior to the record date for such dividend. The amounts that are credited to each award are referred to as "dividend equivalents." Any dividend equivalents credited to an award will be subject to the same vesting, payment and other terms and conditions as the unvested restricted stock units to which the dividend equivalents relate. Depending on the domicile of the employee, accumulated dividend equivalents will either be paid in cash or used to offset employee taxes due upon vesting of the restricted stock units.

The Committee determined these amendments were appropriate in light of the Company's announcement on March 19, 2012 that it intends to commence paying ordinary cash dividends of $2.65 per share to its shareholders on a quarterly basis sometime during the fourth quarter of its 2012 fiscal year. As restricted stock units are not outstanding shares of common stock and thus would not otherwise be entitled to participate in such dividends, the crediting of dividend equivalents is intended to preserve the equity-based incentives intended by the Company when the awards were granted and to treat the award holders consistently with shareholders.

At Mr. Cook's request, none of his restricted stock units will participate in dividend equivalents. Assuming a quarterly dividend of $2.65 per share over the vesting periods of his 1.125 million outstanding restricted stock units, Mr. Cook will forego approximately $75 million in dividend equivalent value.

Apple's iPad selection page for Asia reveals that the company will be launching the third-generation iPad in both the Philippines and Guam next Tuesday, May 29. This smaller group of additions comes just over two weeks after Apple's last round, which saw the device launch in 30 new countries.

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Apple has noted several times that its international rollout of the third-generation iPad is the fastest ever for an Apple product, with the company now offering the device in roughly 90 countries just over two months after its first round of launches.

Related Roundup: iPad
Buyer's Guide: iPad (Buy Now)
Related Forum: iPad

Logo sketchbookinkAt the introduction for the third generation iPad this past March, Apple invited a number of developers to showcase their apps designed for the Retina display-equipped new iPad. One of these was Autodesk, a major developer that has been prolific at writing apps for iOS. Their new app, Sketchbook Ink, has finally arrived on the App Store.

Powered by a brand new engine, Autodesk SketchBook Ink introduces unique technology for artists to create stunning, high-resolution ink-style artwork. The SketchBook Ink addition to the SketchBook family increases the number of choices available to artists to express their creative visions in a digital environment.

The app offers 7 different strokes to users with virtual ink that doesn't simply appear on the page -- instead, it leaves "interesting little imperfections as if it were seeping into the paper", says Harry McCracken writing for Technologizer:

And Ink has one noteworthy feature which SketchBook Pro doesn’t — the drawings you create aren’t bitmaps. Instead, they’re resolution-independent, so you can zoom in as much as you like and can save them to the iPad’s Photo Library, Dropbox, iTunes or email at resolutions that go beyond even the new iPad’s 2048-by-1536 pixels without introducing any jaggies. You can opt for up to 11,336-by-8727 resolution; that’s especially useful if you plan to eventually print your creation.

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Untitled Crocodile Drawing by Harry McCracken

SketchBook Ink is available for iPad for the introductory price of $1.99, going up to $4.99 eventually. [Direct Link]

As highlighted by our sister site TouchArcade, a group of independent developers across a broad array of platforms are having a weeklong sale on their apps celebrating their distribution through marketplaces that allow developers to set their own pricing. Operating under the banner of Because We May, the developers are in many cases offering very significant discounts on their apps.

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We believe that developers should have the freedom to price their games how they like, without interference from the online stores that sell the games. Why? Because it allows us to promote our games more freely, as we are doing here! We rely on the ability to promote our games for our livelihood and control over pricing is an important tool for this purpose.

From now until June 1, the group is inviting all interested developers to join the promotion, which currently includes nearly 150 iOS App Store titles, almost 50 Mac App Store titles, and an assortment of other games available via Google Play for Android, Steam, and other marketplaces.


The list of iOS games already involved in the sale includes popular titles such as World of Goo, Osmos, Eliss, Canabalt, Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor, and Zen Bound 2.

NewImageApple has released a minor bug fix update to its Aperture photo editing and management software.

What's New in Aperture 3.2.4

- Improves stability on Mac OS X Snow Leopard.
- Addresses an issue that could prevent the Viewer from updating correctly after editing a photo using an external editor.

The app weighs in at 635.54MB and is available through Software Update, Apple's software update website, or the Mac App Store for customers who have purchased Aperture through it.

Logo facebookcameraFacebook today released a new standalone iPhone app dedicated to posting and sharing photos on the 900-million strong social network. Facebook Camera aims to make using photos on Facebook "faster and easier", according to a press release.

The app, much like the Facebook Messenger app launched last year, is designed to streamline a single Facebook feature that users are constantly interacting with, rather than using the clunkier Facebook iOS app. Photos are such a large part of Facebook that the company recently spent $1 billion to purchase photo sharing service Instagram.

Facebook built the app to make it much easier for mobile users to share multiple photos to the network -- something that is cumbersome in the standard Facebook app. Facebook Camera, made by a dedicated Photos team, streamlines browsing photos that friends have posted, a task which is all many users want to use Facebook for. From All Things D:

Facebook seems to have learned a heck of a lot from Instagram. Photos in Facebook Camera are full-bleed, spanning the entire width of the iPhone’s screen (which was probably tested when Facebook tweaked the photo experience for mobile last week). You’re able to comment and like photos directly from the stream. And of course, there are filters (albeit ones with names nowhere near as fun as Toaster or Valencia).

More than this, it’s very lightweight. The app moves much faster than browsing photos within Facebook’s proper app. And by introducing a separate camera app, it’s another way of bypassing the cumbersome, clicky process of adding pictures via the main Facebook app.


Instagram and Facebook Camera may seem like competitors -- and within Facebook they will be, sort of. Ellis Hamburger reports for The Verge:

The Facebook Camera team has been working on the app for months, and Mark Zuckerberg reportedly kept his desire to purchase Instagram close to the vest, as if he almost impulse-bought it. Had the Instagram deal never occurred, Facebook Camera wouldn't really be much of an Instagram competitor anyway, lacking any mobile-only social circles and hashtagged sharing around specific topics. "Enhancing the Facebook photos experience on mobile is long overdue," Facebook's Derick Mains told me. "We really had to step up our game, and we're committed to building Instagram independently."

Facebook Camera is available free on the App Store. [Direct Link]

While Steve Jobs famously panned the idea of a stylus for the iPhone at the device's unveiling in January 2007, Apple has continued researching ideas for stylus-based input, if only as part of continued reevaluation of how users interact with their devices and how technology will change those interactions over time. Toward that end, Unwired View highlights a pair of Apple patent applications filed in late 2010 and published today addressing optical and haptic stylus concepts.

Apple's idea for an optical stylus takes advantage of a tiny camera on the tip of the pen that would allow it to track patterns on a device's screen that are invisible to the user's eye. The stylus could also incorporate other sensors such as pressure sensors, accelerometers, and gyroscopes to help determine orientation and movement.

In some embodiments, a stylus is provided with an optical sensor, such as a camera, that is used in determining a location and movement of the stylus relative to a touch screen display of a computing device. It should be appreciated, however, that displays other than touch screens may be implemented in some embodiments. The optical stylus may be configured to transmit the location and movement to the computing device. In some embodiments, the optical stylus may be configured to process and/or filter the location and movement information prior to transmission, whereas in other embodiments, raw data may be transmitted.

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Apple's generic iPhone stylus concept with enlarged view of encoding pattern for tracking movement

Alternatively, Apple suggests that it could incorporate haptic feedback to allow users to gain a tactile feel for the content on a device's screen via a stylus. Apple has researched haptics for quite some time, and the patent application published today describes how a haptic actuator embedded in the stylus could receive signals from a device to help users gain a tactile feel for the context of their onscreen input.

Generally, input devices do not provide haptic feedback to a user in response to interactions with the input device. The user can typically only feel the rigid surface of the touch screen, making it difficult to find icons, hyperlinks, text boxes, or other user-selectable input elements on the display. An input device capable of generating haptic feedback may help a user navigate content displayed on the display screen, and may further serve to enhance the content of various applications by creating a more appealing and realistic user interface. "Haptic feedback" may be any tactile feedback. Examples include forces, vibrations, and/or motions that may be sensed by the user.

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Apple's concept for stylus with haptic feedback

There has been essentially no evidence that Apple is seriously looking at incorporating a stylus into its products, but it remains clear that the company is thinking about how such pen-based input could be used in novel ways.

Tag: Patent

iphone 4s retina displayFollowing a March agreement that saw Foxconn and Sharp entering into a partnership to advance LCD technology, Reuters reports on a new article from Japan's Nikkei business newspaper indicating that the two companies are specifically teaming up on a new plant in Chengdu, China to produce displays for the iPhone.

Japan's Sharp Corp will supply technological know-how to Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry Co for a plant in China that will produce panels for Apple Inc's iPhone and other consumer electronics products, the Nikkei business daily said on Thursday. [...]

The Nikkei said that the new technology handover, for which Sharp will receive tens of billions of yen in fees, is aimed at improving quality management at Hon Hai's planned plant in Chengdu.

Apple has been working hard to continue streamlining its supply chain, and closer partnerships between component suppliers such as Sharp and device assemblers like Foxconn will likely help Apple move more quickly and efficiently to the latest technologies for its products.

Sharp was reportedly behind the main force in development of the third-generation iPad's Retina display technology, but quality control issues led to the company being shut out of the initial batch of devices as it sought to bring its production up to Apple's standards. The company has reportedly begun shipping its displays for the new iPad, joining Samsung and LG in efforts to meet Apple's demand.

Related Forum: iPhone

Back in November, The Wall Street Journal took a look at how Tim Cook was putting his stamp on Apple just two months after officially being elevated to the position on Chief Executive Officer. But with Cook now having been on the job for nine months, Fortune examines in a lengthy profile how the company and its culture have continued to evolve under his leadership.

A 14-year veteran of the company, Cook is maintaining, by words and actions, most of Apple's unique corporate culture. But shifts of behavior and tone are absolutely apparent; some of them affect the core of Apple's critical product-development process. In general, Apple has become slightly more open and considerably more corporate. In some cases Cook is taking action that Apple sorely needed and employees badly wanted. It's almost as if he is working his way through a to-do list of long-overdue repairs the previous occupant (Jobs) refused to address for no reason other than obstinacy.

Calling Tim Cook "the master of operational efficiency", the report notes that Cook continues to spur Apple to both streamline and innovate with its manufacturing processes, bankrolling purchases of equipment and other infrastructure with its own money to allow its supply chain and assembly partners to improve efficiency and output.

tim cook ipad portrait illustration
But that operational efficiency has led to the belief that Apple is becoming more traditional and conservative, becoming an "execution engine" driven by business-oriented managers with MBAs and less dependent on its design and technical expertise to lead the way.

It looks like it has become a more conservative execution engine rather than a pushing-the-envelope engineering engine," says Max Paley, a former engineering vice president who worked at Apple for 14 years until late 2011. "I've been told that any meeting of significance is now always populated by project management and global-supply management," he says. "When I was there, engineering decided what we wanted, and it was the job of product management and supply management to go get it. It shows a shift in priority."

The entire profile is an interesting look at how Apple is changing under Tim Cook, also highlighting his own evolution in becoming the face of Apple and how he differs from Steve Jobs, from his quiet nature to his willingness to listen to investors to sitting down to eat with random employees in the Apple cafeteria.

Apple has begun running a pair of new television ads for the iPhone 4S and Siri featuring actor John Malkovich. This comes after a pair of celebrity ads started running last month with Samuel L. Jackson and Zooey Deschanel.

Malkovich: Life.

Siri: Try and be nice to people. Avoid eating fat. Read a good book every now and then. Get some walking in. And try to live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.

Malkovich: That's pretty spectacular advice, actually. Thank you. I enjoyed this chat immensely. You are very eloquent.

Siri: That's nice of you to say.

The celebrity ads scored very well with viewers, registering higher scores from advertising tracking firm Ace Metrix than any other iPhone 4S ad released so far this year.

John Malkovich is well known for his unique acting style and his iPhone 4S ad reflects his somewhat peculiar persona. The query that Malkovich posits -- "Life"-- elicits a number of different responses from Siri, including:

"42"

"I Kant answer that. Ha ha!"

"It's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya."

"Life: the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death."

"I don't know. But I think there's an app for that."

"I can't answer that now, but give me some time to write a very long play in which nothing happens."

"I find it odd that you would ask this of an inanimate object."

"That's easy… it's a philosophical question concerning the purpose and significance of life or existence in general."

"Life: a principle or force that is considered to underlie the distinctive quality of animate beings. I guess that includes me."

"A movie."

"I give up."

A second ad is airing as well, showcasing a bit more of Siri's talents:

The North Carolina Utilities Commission today officially approved (PDF) Apple's proposal to construct a 4.8-megawatt fuel cell electric generating facility near its data center in Maiden, North Carolina. The Commission previously approved a plan by Apple to build the first of two 20 megawatt solar farms around its data center.

The Public Staff presented this matter to the Commission at its Regular Staff Conference on May 21, 2012. The Public Staff recommended that the Commission approve the application and issue a certificate of public convenience and necessity.

After careful consideration, the Commission finds good cause to approve the application and issue the attached certificate of public convenience and necessity for the proposed 4.8-MW AC fuel cell electric generating facility located at 5977 Startown Road, Maiden, Catawba County, North Carolina.

Previous filings (PDF) with federal regulators have indicated that Apple plans to have the fuel cell facility installed by July 16, with operation to begin by July 30.

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Bloom's Fuel Cell Boxes

Apple is acquiring the fuel cell boxes from Bloom Energy, based in Sunnyvale, California, near Apple's Cupertino headquarters where Apple already has some Bloom boxes installed. It appears that the fuel cell boxes will be powered by standard natural gas from the grid, while Apple will be purchasing environmentally-friendly biogas from a local provider which will be inserted into the grid at a 1:1 ratio. This will keep the system as "green" as possible.

Apple signaled its intentions to build a data center at the site last October, moving to clear and grade the land as it sought approval for the project. The company publicly unveiled its plans back in February, noting that the facility will be the largest user-owned fuel cell installation in the United States not owned by a utility company.

In the week since Apple's last developer update of OS X Mountain Lion, several new features including hints of automatic app downloads have been discovered in the next-generation operating system. The discoveries are still continuing, with signs of two new features: offline Reading List mode and iOS-like dictation.

Gear Live highlights the offline reading list option, which is an augmentation of the Safari bookmarking feature that debuted in OS X Lion and syncs saved articles across devices. As noticed by Gear Live, a warning screen in Safari on OS X Mountain Lion indicates that articles saved to Reading List are available for viewing even when the user's Mac is not connected to the Internet.

While troubleshooting a home network issue today, I stumbled upon a new feature that Apple is introducing in OS X Mountain Lion. [...]

When you aren't connected to a network and pull up Safari, you get a message that tells you that you aren't connected to the Internet, but that your "Reading List articles are available for viewing while you are offline."

safari reading list offline
Meanwhile, 9to5Mac reports that a keyboard shortcut listing in the latest build of OS X Mountain Lion suggests that built-in dictation capabilities will be coming to the Mac. Such capabilities debuted as part of Siri on the iPhone 4S, with only the dictation portion making its way into the third-generation iPad released earlier this year.

According to a resources file inside of the latest build of Safari in the newest seed of the upcoming OS X Mountain Lion, Dictation might be making its way to Macs next. Since Macs do not sport virtual keyboards or physical keyboards with a microphone-labled key, users (by default) will apparently need to simultaneously click both command keys to start voice input.

mountain lion dictation
No other evidence of dictation or other Siri-like features has yet been discovered in OS X Mountain Lion, but Apple continues to work on the next-generation operating system and will undoubtedly issue an extensive preview of it at next month's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.

Accessory maker Moshi has released a new ultra-thin plastic shell protective case for the 11" and 13" MacBook Air models. This type of plastic case tends to be especially popular among students, protecting their machines from bumps and scratches. Moshi claims its case offers better heat dissipation than competing cases because it doesn't block the rear heating vent.

Moshiiglaze

Many MacBook Air cases offered today feature bulky, obtrusive designs, and are often composed of materials which may not last the life of a device. The iGlaze for MacBook Air is an ultra-thin, stylish case created from the same polycarbonate material that’s been proven for durability throughout Moshi’s iGlaze line of cases for iPhone, iPad and MacBook devices. The iGlaze is surface-treated with a specialized coating that not only offers better scratch resistance than alternatives, but also accentuates the device's elegant design.

The iGlaze Air cases come in black, white, and translucent, and are available on Moshi's website for $55 and $60 for the 11" and 13" versions, respectively.

Blizzard Entertainment said this week that it sold more than 3.5 million copies of Diablo III on launch day, setting the record for fastest-selling PC game. The company also sold 1.2 million copies of the game to subscribers of the World of Warcraft Annual Pass, meaning 4.7 million copies of the game were in the hands of gamers on day one.

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There were a number of server slowdowns and issues for gamers looking to play the game on opening day and, as a result, Blizzard was very apologetic in its statement:

"We’re definitely thrilled that so many people around the world were excited to pick up their copy of Diablo III and jump in the moment it went live," said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. "We also regret that our preparations were not enough to ensure everyone had a seamless experience when they did so. I want to reaffirm our commitment to make sure the millions of Diablo III players out there have a great experience with the game moving forward, and I also want to thank them for their ongoing support."

To cut down on cheating and piracy, Blizzard requires the Diablo III client to be connected to their servers at all times during gameplay, even during the single-player campaign.

Diablo III is available via Blizzard's website and at retail stores.

NewImageHard drive maker Seagate has announced it will purchase data storage device maker LaCie for roughly $186 million.

The company plans to buy the controlling stake owned by Philippe Spruch, Lacie's chairman and CEO, followed by a cash-offer for the rest of the outstanding shares, reports Forbes. Spruch is expected to join Seagate as the head of the company's consumer storage products group.

"The transaction would combine two highly complementary product and technology portfolios, adding LaCie’s line of premium branded consumer storage solutions, network-attached storage solutions and software offerings to Seagate’s array of mainstream consumer storage products," Seagate said in a statement. "The combination would accelerate Seagate’s growth strategy in the expanding consumer storage market, particularly in Europe and Japan, and add strong engineering and software development capabilities, as well as relationships with several key retailers."

BGR reports that Microsoft is planning to launch Office for iOS in November this year, with the source claiming first-hand knowledge of the software running on an iPad. With the app's splash screen referring to it as "Office for iOS", the source also speculates that the app may also be coming to the smaller screens of the iPhone and iPod touch. In addition to its iOS effort, Microsoft is also said to be bringing Office to Android-based tablets in the same timeframe.

Microsoft had indicated soon after the launch of the original iPad that it was investigating the possibility of bringing Office to the platform, but ultimately stated that it had no plans for such an effort. The Daily has since claimed several times that Office for iPad is in fact in the works, reporting in February that it had even had hands-on time with a prototype of the app.

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Photo of claimed Office prototype app running on an iPad (Source: The Daily)

Microsoft denied the claim, but The Daily continues to stand by its report. Suggesting that there may have been a misunderstanding somewhere, Microsoft stated that the situation would become "clear in the coming weeks". No such clarification has yet surfaced, however.

Related Roundup: iPad
Buyer's Guide: iPad (Buy Now)
Related Forum: iPad

Logo mintIntuit has upgraded the iOS app for its Mint personal finance tool with two new "most-requested" features that should keep users from ever having to go to the Mint.com website. Until now, there were several important budgeting tasks that required users to head to Mint's website to manage.

Users can now create new budgets and edit existing budgets, using a clever "budget slider" to set and adjust existing budgets.

Also new is the ability to split existing transactions into multiple categories, such as turning a large Wal-Mart shopping trip into $200 of groceries and $75 of household supplies for more accurate budgeting. In fact, the new transaction splitting feature is even easier to use than the same feature on the Mint website.

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The Mint app is a free download for iPhone and iPad. Users can sign up within the app. [Direct Link]