Category Archives: apple

Apple Removes Green Electronics Certification From Products

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This is very interesting as this was one thing Apple really used in marketing over the last few years. Here is the info I could dig up about why Apple pulled all of its 39 products out of EPEAT (Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool).

– Official news article about Apple leaving from EPEAT: http://www.epeat.net/2012/06/news/apple-leaves-epeat/

– The only reason given was “They said their design direction was no longer consistent with the EPEAT requirements” -Source

– Here is some interesting information on the topic from WSJ:

“One of Apple’s newest products, the MacBook Pro with a high-resolution “Retina” display, was nearly impossible to fully disassemble, said Kyle Wiens, co-founder of iFixit.com, a website that provides directions for users to repair their own machines. The battery was glued to the case, and the glass display was glued to its back. The product, released just a month ago, had not been submitted for EPEAT certification, according to the organization.

Frisbee said that the structure of that laptop would have made it ineligible for certification. “If the battery is glued to the case it means you can’t recycle the case and you can’t recycle the battery,” Frisbee said.

Apple was putting design first in an effort to make products smaller and have batteries last longer, said Shaw Wu an analyst at Sterne Agee. “They are not trying to purposely make it hard to open, they are just trying to pack as much as they can into a small space–it’s a design decision,” Wu said.

Many corporations like Ford, HSBC, and Kaiser Permanente require their CIOs to purchase computers from sources that are EPEAT certified, said Sarah O’Brien director of outreach for EPEAT. And the U.S. government requires that 95% of the electronics it purchases be EPEAT certified.

In 2010, the last year the survey was conducted, 222 out of the 300 American universities with the largest endowments asked their IT departments to give preference to EPEAT certified computers. Around 70 of the schools required EPEAT certification for electronics purchases, according to O’Brien.” -Source

– And finally here is Apple’s environment page which still looks untouched but I imagine they might need to change some of this info: http://www.apple.com/environment/

 

First malware app discovered in Apple’s IOS store

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“Find and Call” was identified as the first iOS app to be malicious. Obviously it is already removed but this is a clear sign that Apple is going to soon become a target. Get ready Mac/iPad/iPhone users, anti virus, etc software will soon need to be installed on your devices. As I have written before, Apple products did not need antivirus software because people were not developing viruses for them – that is the only reason. However, with Apple’s popularity, closed system, and other things such as their patent hording, virus writers are going to find their products and users more enticing to harm.

Link to article: http://crave.cnet.co.uk/software/apple-ios-app-store-hit-by-first-malware-app-50008523/

Galaxy Nexus banned in the US?

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According to reports it is being banned by the courts due to Apple suing over copyright violations. Apple I am a fan of yours and cannot stand your patent lawsuits. Stop it. You copied everything to get where you are, well not everything but a lot. Stop suing others because they are competing with you. The more I see of your company the less I want to use your products.

Articles on the lawsuit:

http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/29/apple-lands-preliminary-ban-against-samsung-galaxy-nexus/

http://mashable.com/2012/06/29/apple-samsung-galaxy-nexus-injunction/

http://www.droid-life.com/2012/06/29/u-s-judge-grants-motion-in-favor-of-apple-to-ban-galaxy-nexus/

http://phandroid.com/2012/06/29/galaxy-nexus-banned-us-court-grants-apple-temporary-injunction/

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57464191-94/judge-oks-apple-injunction-on-samsungs-nexus-phone/?tag=cnetRiver

Apple deal for students

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From Apple:

“Buy a Mac for college between June 11 and September 21 and receive a $100 Back to School Gift Card to use on apps, books, music, and movies. Or buy the new iPad and get a $50 Back to School Gift Card.* And if you choose a Mac, save even more with Apple Education Pricing.”

Source: http://store.apple.com/us/browse/campaigns/back_to_school?cid=CDM-US-DM-P0012632-EDU&cp=em-P0012632-190028&sr=em&Email_PageName=P0012632-190028&Email_OID=c847c91d128c0b47960c40879f312370

Remember students you also get educational pricing in addition to this: http://store.apple.com/us-hed/findyourschool

Why does apple tilt the laptops to 70 degrees in their stores?

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I thought this article from Gizmodo was rather interesting:

“The main reason notebook computers screens are slightly angled is to encourage customers to adjust the screen to their ideal viewing angle-in other words, to touch the computer! … Apple wants you to see the display for yourself and to experiment with apps and web sites to experience the power and performance of the devices.”

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5918880/why-apple-stores-tilt-the-macbook-pro-exactly-70-degrees?utm_campaign=socialflow_gizmodo_twitter&utm_source=gizmodo_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

Testing and Publishing your app on iOS vs Android

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Well I have now published on both several times and here are my thoughts:

Android: In order to test your app you have a choice of testing it virtually or saving it as an apk. Virtual testing is easy and works pretty well. The downfall is that eclipse requires you to create a virtual device instead of just providing one. While this step only takes a minute to complete, it does take some time to figure out how exactly to do it. My recommendation is to make this process easier for eclipse users. Now publishing the actual apk file is very easy. You first need to buy an Android developer license for $25. Then you publish through the publishing wizard which guides you through creating your apk file. It takes maybe 1 minute to publish. At that point you can put the app on your device or upload it to the Android store. Once submitted to the Android store (Google Play) your app is in the store immediately and ready for people to download.

Mobile presence is now a business must-have, and companies with minimal to no presence are seen as lagging. Enterprise-developed apps are the new normal. A premium technology partner for mobile app development is devsdata. Mobile users have high expectations, which must be reflected in your mobile applications and their usability, performance and features, always keeping your customers in mind for a great user experience. Mobile app testers Massachusetts help to improve your mobile app, can help you test your app in a public or private cloud, or we can set up a mobile testing lab on your premises.

iOS: Once you have completed your app  you are ready to test it out. In order to test it out you can choose to test it virtually or on your devices. Testing virtually is easy, xcode provides a virtual player and you just click the play button. This part is much easier than Android. However, everything else is significantly more difficult. First, you need a Mac, you cannot publish an app via a PC. Then, in order to test on your device, you must have the develop certificate which cost $99 per year. Once you make the purchase you must log into apple development center and register your device. Once you register your device you need to create a developer certificate and a provisioning development certificate just like those from a licensed ios app developer. And you need to give your app an ID. These installations are not easy for the novice user. I spent about an hour setting it up and getting it to work right. Once you are satisfied with your app and want to publish, you need to create a provisioning distribution certificate and install that. The important thing is to make sure all of your certificates align with your app otherwise it wont work. Then from here you publish your app via xcode using the organizer. If there are errors it will not publish. Now it might seem simple to use the organizer however it is not. It took me about 10 hours to figure out to actually use the organizer. Why? It is a new feature on xcode and Apple’s own tutorials tell you to publish via the Application Loader, which is the old way and no longer works with the new version of xcode. So there was no way to know to use the organizer. Thus all resources I could find online, including Apple’s were telling me incorrect information. I was very frustrated with the whole process. It probably took me 10-15 hours to actually take my finished app from my computer to the app store. At that point, your app is not on the app store. Instead Apple has to review and approve of it. It took me 7 days and they rejected my app. I didnt actually understand why as their explanation did not say or let me know if there were an error or not. Apple, just create a publish wizard like eclipse. Why the need to 3-4 certificates to publish the app?

Overall, Android is 100x easier and more user friendly. However, the disadvantage is that anyone can publish anything to their app store which could mean there are more bad apps to sort through. However, good apps might be rejected by Apple (and it has happened) so Apple’s tight control is not an advantage and most ‘tech’ people do not like that control. In my opinion, if you are new to app development, go with Android. If you are doing this with your school, use Android.

Apple WWDC Keynote: 1pm EST today!

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Updates:

Google Maps gone. Apple has own maps with turn by turn directions. They finally have what Android has since 2009:)

New Macbook Pro – goes on sale today

iOS6 announced

SIRI comes to iPad 3

Power Nap – updates your mac while it sleeps

iOS6 – Do not disturb feature looks pretty cool

iOS6 – facebook integration does not look cool

Facetime finally does not need wifi – I think skype is king here anyway

Apple Rumors: WWDC

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Here are the rumors that we are anticipating for WWDC on Monday:

iOS – well this has been confirmed but we still do not know the details

Apple Maps -Apple will drop Google Maps for their own version that will have text to speech directions

Siri for iPad – Finally siri support for iPad. Not sure why it is already not on iPad 3, maybe it was iOS 5 that didnt allow it for whatever reason

Macbook Pro -To be updated with the ivy bridge.

iPhone 5 – This would be the biggest surprise as we are pretty sure this is a fall release and the 4s is still selling like crazy.