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iPhone alarms may fail to activate on New Year's Day

If you're using your iPhone or iPod touch as your primary alarm clock, it might be time to reconsider. In 2010, Apple had well-publicized difficulties with the switchover to Daylight Saving Time. Alarms failed to go off at their proper times, causing thousands of people in the Southern Hemisphere to wake up an hour early and many more thousands in the Northern Hemisphere to wake up an hour late. Now yet another bug has struck Apple's Clock app in iOS: single-use, non-repeating alarms fail to go off at all after New Year's Day.

Just like the Daylight Saving Time bug, living in New Zealand has given me the opportunity to test this bug ahead of time. Strangely, a single-use alarm scheduled to go off at 7:00 A.M. today went off on time, but now single-use alarms don't work at all. Only alarms set to repeat at least once during the week will work properly. 9to5Mac suggests that the problem will clear up after January 3rd, and our testing confirms that -- in a couple of days, the alarms are back to normal.

This bug in the Clock app is somewhat less insidious than the Daylight Saving Time bug, which affected repeating alarms. With this New Year's Day bug, you'll still be safe if you've got a repeating alarm set during the work week. Only single-use alarms will fail to go off. I've tested this with alarms created in 2010 and alarms created in 2011, and it makes no difference; all single-use alarms now fail to activate until after 1/3. I've tested this on an iPhone 4 running iOS 4.2.1 -- your experience may differ if you have a different iOS device or software version.

Considering how many things Apple's managed to get right in iOS, it seems really odd that of all things it's the Clock app that keeps getting mucked up. Let us know in the comments if any third-party alarm clock apps are experiencing the same issue (though I doubt it). In the meantime, if you've been using your iPhone or iPod touch to wake you up in the morning, it might be a good idea to invest in a cheap standalone alarm clock -- or take off work until Monday.
iPhone alarms may fail to activate on New Year's Day originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 31 Dec 2010 22:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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2010 in review: Rise of iOS
Here, in no particular order, are some of the top stories we saw in 2010. The year was packed with Apple announcements, some planned and one unplanned. The real standout this year was iOS coming into its own. This year's WWDC was all about iOS, for example. The Apple TV now runs iOS. iOS 4.2 breathed new life into the already-new iPad, another major story of the year (a wildly successful one at that).

Even OS X 10.7 "Lion" has some iOS-inspired elements from what little we've seen. But it's looking like 2011 will be a return to the Mac side. In 2010 we saw the new MacBook Air, which Steve Jobs called the "future of notebooks." What surprises does Apple have for us on the Macintosh side of the house? 2011 will be an interesting year (again) to watch!

iPad
In 2010 the iPad was revealed and the netbook industry felt the impact. The tablet industry has awakened. We expect 2011's CES to have an enormous range of tablet computers. iOS 4.2 was released months later, giving the iPad features like multitasking which should have been there to begin with. Still, with paltry RAM, no front-facing camera and still not enough storage, the iPad has plenty of room to grow in 2011.

Apps on the iPad made news in themselves, with some apps being available for both iPads and iPhones, some costing more for "HD" versions (a term Apple doesn't endorse, by the way) and some only available for iPad. The new realm of a tablet format opened up possibilities for developers and we continue to see innovation from them on Apple's latest product.

Still, the publishing world was a little dismayed to see the iPad not take off as an e-reader on its own. Digital magazines are falling flat (in part due to Apple's lack of a proper subscription model) and the iBookstore has had its own problems.

iPhone 4
We all knew the iPhone 4 was coming thanks to a forgetful Apple employee and some poorly executed shenanigans from Gizmodo. If only they had tested the antenna!

The iPhone 4 introduced the high-resolution Retina Display, plus a sleek new form factor that brought about "antennagate" and a subsequent press conference to address the issue. iPhone 4 cases were given away and the problem was mitigated by a clever Apple marketing/communications team.

The iPhone 4 also heralded FaceTime as a video calling service (and potential open standard, although we hear inside Apple there is little impetus to release the open portions needed to bring the service to other platforms). The iPhone 4 introduced a front-facing camera to facilitate video calling.

The iPhone 4's addition of an LED flash introduced another wrinkle into the app approval process in that developers quickly started writing flashlight apps which took advantage of the powerful (but battery-killing) light source. Guess what? Apple finally woke up and wrote some clear but open-ended app approval guidelines that addressed many of the previously-unknown guidelines surrounding app approvals.
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2010 in review: Rise of iOS originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 31 Dec 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Ten ways I'll use Apple products to have more fun in 2011
With just a few hours to go in 2010, I'm thinking about 2011 already. This year, I'm not really making any resolutions, since they are made to be broken. Instead, I've written a list of things that I can do using my Apple products to make my life even more enjoyable than it already is. When you get to be my age (over a half-century old), you want to "grab for all the gusto you can get." Since I'm never away from an Apple product (well, almost never -- I don't use my iPhone in the shower), I know that my Macs, iPad, and iPhone can help me make 2011 a very happy New Year.

1) Read more books. I do a lot of writing, which has strangely enough left me with less time to read for enjoyment. With iBooks and the Amazon Kindle reader both installed on my iPad and iPhone, I plan to download a lot more books in 2011. Re-reading some old favorites and exploring new authors will be a nice way to start reading again.

2) Take at least one photo a day. Having my iPhone 4 in my pocket all the time makes it dead simple to take pictures, and even when my day consists of hanging around my home office writing, I can usually find something to snap a photo of with Instagram, Camera+, or the regular iPhone camera app. I started doing this last year just before New Year's Day, but the app that I was using changed mid-year and wouldn't let me post additional photos. This year? I'm just going to post my daily pictures to a new Flickr set so my Project 365 isn't dependent on the whims of a developer.

Continue reading Ten ways I'll use Apple products to have more fun in 2011
Ten ways I'll use Apple products to have more fun in 2011 originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 31 Dec 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Final app giveaway of 2010: Digits for iOS
The clock is ticking toward midnight in the US, and in fact our colleague Chris Rawson has already begun 2011 (he's in New Zealand, on the other side of the International Date Line).

To count all the ways we're thankful to have spent the past 12 months with all of you would take more time than we have left in the year, but as a small token of our appreciation -- here's the last app giveaway of 2010, five promo codes for the essential iPhone and iPad calculator Digits.

In the recent 2.0 release, developer Joshua Distler added multi-tape management to the capable computation app, allowing you to share, sync, email and print your calculator tapes. It's currently on sale for US $0.99, but if you'd like to win a license, just share a comment below with your New Year's resolution (keep it clean!). We'll pick five winners next week.

Best wishes from all of us for a happy, healthy and safe 2011!
- Open to legal US residents of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia who are 18 and older.
- To enter leave a comment on this post telling us your New Year's resolution.
- The comment must be left before January 3, 2011 at 11:59PM Eastern Time.
- You may enter only once.
- 5 winners will be selected in a random drawing.
- Prize: One copy of Digits for iPhone/iPad. (ARV $0.99)
- Click Here for complete Official Rules.
Final app giveaway of 2010: Digits for iOS originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 31 Dec 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Former Apple Store employee sues for discrimination, claims bizarre ordeal

The Apple Store in the SoHo section of New York City has reportedly been sued for discrimination by a former employee, who claims that she was unlawfully fired after taking a medical leave. Nicole Sullivan started working for Apple in 2008, and then took a leave in 2009 because of a nervous disorder. Despite being told that Apple wouldn't learn of her diagnosis, she claims that when she returned to the store, her coworkers clearly knew what had happened. What happened next sounds even more bizarre -- she was given a desk in the store's basement, and when she tried to apply for positions on the store floor, was told that "there were questions about her mental stability." She's now suing the company for back pay, benefits, and $300,000 in damages for the alleged discrimination.

Interesting story if true. I haven't worked at an Apple Store, but I have worked in retail, and I saw enough bizarre interactions between employees and managers that I can believe something like this may have happened. Then again, I am of course not a lawyer, and so I won't make any predictions on how this will all turn out in court.

Of course, this is likely all the result of some specific manager's decision, not actual Apple policy. Hopefully the matter will be settled justly and as quickly as possible.
Former Apple Store employee sues for discrimination, claims bizarre ordeal originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 31 Dec 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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UltraEdit makes the leap to Mac OS X

UltraEdit for Mac was officially released this month. A favorite of Windows developers, UltraEdit was first released in 1994 as one of the earliest "Notepad" replacement text editors for programmers on Windows.

When you use your computer for programming, you live in your text editor. Mac developers love TextMate's project management and plug-ins, BBEdit's built-in code validation, or its freeware sibling TextWrangler's fantastic find and replace. For web development, I use Coda with built in syntax highlighting, source code versioning and a CSS editing mode.

But for Windows users, switching from Windows to Mac has meant giving up a favorite Windows editor, which can feel disorienting. TUAW readers who switched from Windows have been wanting UltraEdit for years, some even running Windows in a VM (virtual machine) just for their text editor. Back in 2007, reader Jon Niola commented, "As a switcher, the app I miss most on Windows is UltraEdit... I wrote to IDM (makers of UltraEdit) to ask them if they were ever going to port to OS X and ... it sounds like it is something they are headed towards eventually."

After fifteen years, it's here.
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UltraEdit makes the leap to Mac OS X originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 31 Dec 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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OpenFeint sees giant spike in Christmas users and downloads
Here's some more evidence that the App Store had a really amazing holiday weekend last week. OpenFeint has announced that it saw a 184% spike in new users on Christmas Day last week, the largest single day in the service's history for new users. Over the four days around the holiday, OpenFeint reportedly added more than 1.4 million new users to the service.

Downloads were also really high, with five million OpenFeint-enabled games downloaded over the holiday weekend. That includes Android games, which saw 73% growth, and iOS games, which spiked by 187% over the weekend. That's a lot of new games and new players.

We've heard other evidence already that last weekend was really busy for the App Store. Apple hasn't released any stats so far (and we've got a line in to EA to try and find out if it can share any of its download figures from the weekend), but we can tell you with some certainty that last weekend saw plenty of new traffic for the App Store and its apps.
OpenFeint sees giant spike in Christmas users and downloads originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 31 Dec 2010 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Digital collections make comics on your iPad easy and cheap
Our friend Macenstein has a nice tip running over on his blog about how to get more comics on your iPad. The iPad is a device that seems made for comic book reading -- that display is colorful and bright, and the touchscreen lets you examine comic art from any size or angle. The problem, however, is price -- while there are some good official apps out there, and some great free comics in them, purchased comics still aren't too cheap, even compared to the real thing.

Enter Amazon, which is selling things like this DVD of Archie Comics for super cheap. For four bucks, you can get 120 digital comics. That's an amazing deal, and while there aren't a lot of those to go around, there are definitely other digital collections you can purchase for much cheaper than actually buying them piecemeal.

Turning those comics into PDFs (or just finding them on the disc) is usually not a problem, and then just dragging the PDFs into iTunes and cracking them open in iBooks is even simpler. And voila, you've got tons and tons of comics to read on your iPad. Excellent tip, and a great way to pick up a lot more comic books to read on your next plane trip.
Digital collections make comics on your iPad easy and cheap originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 31 Dec 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Discovering iPod nano recovery mode
Steven Troughton-Smith writes on his personal weblog that he may have discovered a way to put his iPod nano into some kind of DFU-like recovery mode. By holding down the restart buttons through two reboots, iTunes will see the device and alert the user. Entering DFU/Recovery mode allows hackers to submit customized software to iOS devices and doing so with the nano offers the promise of adding modified software.

Troughton-Smith tells TUAW that he can now "can push firmware files to the device and have them execute." From there, he can boot disk mode or the OS using those firmware files. Check out the video on the next page for a screencast of the process in action.

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Discovering iPod nano recovery mode originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 31 Dec 2010 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Give presentations on Apple TV with AirPDF and AirFlick
As I've been exploring the newest Apple TV, people keep asking to see if I can push boundaries in new directions. Apple TV's concept of a wireless video endpoint that connects to a large screen TV has excited a lot of people.

Although I haven't yet been able to produce a way to show live game screens from iPhones (games are likely going to have to rely on local Apple TV resource processing for that, probably involving a unit jailbreak at least at first), Apple's AirPlay does provide a ready way to give presentations using a Mac and Apple TV.

In the video that follows after the jump, you'll see a new tool that I put together in response to TUAW reader requests. It transmits PDF files a page at a time to Apple TV. Read on to learn more about how this works and how Mac developers can easily hook into Apple TV transmission.
Continue reading Give presentations on Apple TV with AirPDF and AirFlick
Give presentations on Apple TV with AirPDF and AirFlick originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 31 Dec 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Visit the Western Wall in Jerusalem with iKotel on your iPhone

The Western Wall Heritage Foundation has released iKotel, an iOS app that lets iPhone owners make a virtual visit to the Western Wall, one of Judaism's most sacred sites. According to Western Wall Heritage Foundation president Joseph Loshinsky, the app was developed to address the age-old problem of "people dreaming of Jerusalem but not being able to get there." In Hebrew, the word "Kotel" means "wall," and the Western Wall is known as HaKotel, "The Wall."

The app features a live video feed of the Kotel (except for the Sabbath, Friday night through Saturday night, when traditionally observant Jews do not use electronics). The app can also be used to send a personalized prayer to the Western Wall, which will be recorded by the Kotel's rabbinic staff and placed within a crevice of the ancient stones. The app leverages the GPS and gyroscope of the iPhone to help users point themselves towards the Western Wall for a time of prayer.

While it won't replace an actual visit to the Western Wall, it is a handy and portable connection to this ancient and intriguing place. The iKotel app made its debut in the App Store earlier this week and is available for free in English, Hebrew and Russian.

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Visit the Western Wall in Jerusalem with iKotel on your iPhone originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 31 Dec 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Popular indie game Canabalt goes open source

The developers behind Canabalt confirmed that the game's source code will be made available as part of an open source project. The game will be licensed under the MIT Open Source license, which will let other developers use the engine source code in its entirety for both personal and commercial projects. While the code powering the game is available for the world to use, the game art, sounds, animations and Canabalt game-specific code is still proprietary. Basically, you cannot re-package their game and claim it as your own, but you can use the underlying engine code to power your own game.

The developers warn prospective parties that the code behind the game may not be "ideal or optimal." The game was self-admittedly ported to the iPhone in a rush and was done so before the iPhone 4 and iPad were even released. Only two developers have worked on the game and they have managed to keep the game updated as best they can. As part of this effort, the app was optimized for 60 FPS performance on the iPhone 4 and the iPad and this new code will be included in the open source release. The duo behind Canabalt hopes the code base will be helpful for developers who have some experience with the Flixel game development library, Flash or Objective C.

As an aside, Canabalt is part of the Indie iPhone Holiday Sale and the devs confirmed the charitable program has raised over US$25,000 for Child's Play, an organization that provides hospitals with toys and games for their younger patients. The holiday sale lasts until January 2, so you have a few more days to buy a game and give to a good cause.
Popular indie game Canabalt goes open source originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 31 Dec 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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iPad holiday sales estimates are all over the place
There is little doubt that Apple was intent on selling a lot of iPads this holiday season. The Cupertino company widened its retail distribution channels by making the iPad available at wireless carriers like Verizon and AT&T and big box retailers like Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Target. Seemingly everywhere you went, there was an iPad for sale. The big question that will be officially answered in Apple's Q1 financial statement is whether this increased retail footprint lead to increased sales of Apple's tablet device.

While we wait for the official numbers to be revealed, Forbes turned to analysts and asked them to estimate Apple's holiday sales figures. These iPad holiday figures were all over the place with some analysts, like Daniel Ernst of Hudson Square, predicting sales as low as 5 million and others like Bill Shope of Goldman Sachs, estimating as high as 7.54 million units sold. The average number predicted by analysts landed at 6.53 million which is higher than the 4.19 million sold in Q4 2010. This wide range may be the result of last quarter's faux pas. Analysts may be a bit gun shy at predicting high numbers for this holiday quarter as their Q4 predictions of 5-6 million overshot last quarter's numbers by 1-2 million. Interested parties will have to wait for Apple to confirm the final sales numbers when it releases its Q1 2011 earnings report on January 18, 2011.

iPad holiday sales estimates are all over the place originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 31 Dec 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Daily Deals for December 31, 2010
What a year! To close out 2010, here are some nifty deals on a variety of goodies direct from our partners at dealnews.com. Hey, who couldn't use a fish-shaped USB heated mouse pad hand warmer?
- iTunes Store: iPhone App Store Freebies: QuickSocial, Distant Assassin, TrucksRush, more
- iTunes Store: RunKeeper Pro for iPhone or Android downloads for free
- iTunes Store: iPad App Price Drops: GT Racing: Motor Academy, Real Soccer 2011, more
- iTunes Store: Diner Dash for iPhone / iPod touch for free
- MacUpdate Promo: Divvy for Mac downloads for $8
- Meritline: Mini Bluetooth Wireless Keyboard for $21 + free shipping
- iTunes Music Store: iPhone App Price Drops: Top Shelf Drinks, Price is Right, Burn the Rope, more
- MacMall: Apple Mac Pro Xeon Quad-Core 2.93GHz Workstation for $2,050 + free shipping
- HandHeldItems: Carbon Fiber Skin for Apple iPhone 4 + $1 credit for $4 + free shipping
- Meritline: Hands-Free Headset with Mic for Apple iPhone for $1 + free shipping
- Meritline: Fish-Shaped USB Heated Mouse Pad Hand Warmer for $6 + free shipping
- ExperCom: Apple iMac Core i7 2.8GHz 27" w/ 8GB RAM, AppleCare for $1,999 + $29 s&h
Daily Deals for December 31, 2010 originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 31 Dec 2010 10:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Free Accordance Bible study software for iOS now available
Accordance, the publisher of the Mac-only Bible study software that I've reviewed before (see here and here) and included in my "best Mac apps" of 2010, has released their long-awaited iOS app for iPad or iPhone/iPod touch.

As mentioned in the official release notice, the free universal app includes a copy of the English Standard Version (ESV) of the Bible, which is linked to Strong's numbers. There are also free Greek and Hebrew dictionaries, a copy of Easton's Bible Dictionary and more. In addition, those who create a free Accordance account will have access to even more free resources (see the official release for more details).

If you're already an Accordance user, you should use your existing account name and password, because it will allow you to select modules that you have purchased to be downloaded and installed on your iOS device. To do so, tap the Books icon at the bottom left of the main screen to access your iOS library, then tap the down arrow on the bottom left of the "Library" screen. Accordance for iOS will show you all of the modules that you can download and their sizes.

I've only just downloaded the app and some modules, so I can't really offer much in the way of a review. The app had been announced for a December launch, and they made it with hours to spare. More information can be found on the Accordance for iOS forum, including some preliminary Q&A, which was done on the official forum announcement post. Online help documentation is also available. Congrats to the Accordance team!

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Free Accordance Bible study software for iOS now available originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 31 Dec 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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TUAW's Daily App: Seafood Watch
Here's another Daily App choice that's a little more practical than a lot of the games we've been covering lately. Seafood Watch is an app updated with information about fish from all over the world, letting you see at a glance where the fish you're eating probably came from and not only how nutritious it is for you, but how good for the environment as well.

The app is designed by the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and finding information about the fish on your table or at your supermarket is as easy as pulling up a guide to browse, doing a search for the fish name or even checking around your location.

Plus, as New Year's Eve is tonight, there's even a sushi guide. So when the sushi gets passed around a little before midnight, you can take a look at the guide and know exactly where that sashimi came from. Seafood Watch is a free download from the App Store for the iPhone. Have a safe and happy New Year's Eve tonight!
TUAW's Daily App: Seafood Watch originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 31 Dec 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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