Buy iMac

Twitter plans to launch its music discovery app, #Music, Thursday after a few weeks of rumors. The free app, which Twitter announced Thursday morning on ABC’s Good Morning America, will be available starting later today on the web and in Apple’s iTunes store as an iPhone app. It was built by the team behind We Are Hunted, which Twitter acquired last year.

In a post on its blog, Twitter explained how the app works:

“It uses Twitter activity, including Tweets and engagement, to detect and surface the most popular tracks and emerging artists. It also brings artists’ music-related Twitter activity front and center: go to their profiles to see which music artists they follow and listen to songs by those artists. And, of course, you can tweet songs right from the app.

The songs on Twitter #music currently come from three sources: iTunes, Spotify or Rdio. By default, you will hear previews from iTunes when exploring music in the app. Subscribers to Rdio and Spotify can log in to their accounts to enjoy full tracks that are available in those respective catalogs. We will continue to explore and add other music service providers.”

#Music will be available today in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Australia and New Zealand. Twitter says that “over time” it will expand to Android and to other countries.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Analyzing the wearable computing market
• The future of mobile: a segment analysis by GigaOM Pro
• Report: How Mobile Cloud Computing Will Change Tech

We have heard ongoing stories about parents dishing out iPads to their kids, only to be surprised when ‘accidental’ in-app purchases occur (like spending $1500 CDN on virtual donuts). The Guardian now reports Apple has implemented a small change to all paid and freemium apps within the App Store to add the line “Offers In-App Purchases,” which can only be seen within iTunes at this moment in time.

Apple told The Guardian this change makes it easier for people to know about possible purchases within apps in advance:

Apple confirmed to The Guardian that the message is a new addition to the App Store. Its location – directly below the icon and “Free” button on each app’s page – makes it even easier for people to identify that an app uses in-app purchases (IAP) before downloading it.

Apple has been constantly dealing with issues involving in-app purchases. Last month the company agreed to settle a lawsuit over ‘bait apps’ that caused extended unwarranted in-app charges.

For the savvy parents out there, you probably have already turned on restrictions for in-app purchases in iOS settings. How to get there? Easy:

Settings > General > Restrictions > Toggle OFF In-App Purchases.

Apple Rolls Out ‘Offers In-App Purchases’ Descriptor in the App Store is a post from: iPhone in Canada Blog – Canada's #1 iPhone Resource

Hulu rolled out a new UI for its Hulu Plus app on Apple TV devices Tuesday, highlighting new content categories and continuing the relaunch of the service on a variety of CE devices. The new app was announced by Hulu’s senior product manager for living room devices Dave Herman, who wrote on Hulu’s blog that the company “redesigned the Hulu Plus experience from the ground up.” He went on to say:

“Right away, you’ll notice we’ve added content categories across the top navigation bar to make it easy to for you to jump to your chosen section – whether it is TV, Kids, Latino, Search, or something else. Inside each category, you’ll discover what’s new in our content library so it’s easy to discover new shows and keep up with the shows you already love.”

Hulu rolled out a revamped website last summer, and relaunched its PS3 app soon after. Hulu’s UI for consumer electronics devices has been in need for a refresh for some time, as it is essentially unchanged since its launch in 2010.

A spokesperson told us Tuesday that the company doesn’t have anything to announce at this point, but it’s likely that other devices will get a UI revamp soon as well.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Who and what to watch in the new era of the living room
• What the shift to the cloud means for the future EPG
• Connected consumer third-quarter 2012

class="alignright size-full wp-image-112536" title="Scosche Lightning Chargers" src="http://www.technologytell.com/apple/files/2013/02/scoschelightning.jpg" alt="Scosche Lightning Chargers"
width="400" height="148">It’s been quite some time since Apple made the switch from the 30-pin dock port to the new Lightning port, and third-party manufacturers are just now starting to roll out
their Lightning accessories (through no fault of their own). One of the first is Scosche Industries, who have made available four Lighting chargers and the first official retractable lightning
cable: strikeBASE (available in both 5W and 12W models), strikeDRIVE (available in both 5W and 12W models) and strikeLINE PRO.

strikeBase 5W and 12W Lightning charger

The new…

Continue reading Scosche rolls out Lightning chargers for Apple’s latest iDevices

Related posts:

1. Scosche announces Lightning connector accessories
2. Apple’s Lightning to Micro USB adapter now available for $19
3. Macworld/iWorld 2013: PARAT Solutions demos Super-Dock for Lightning devices

class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-110644" title="Zenonia 5" src="http://www.technologytell.com/apple/files/2013/01/zenonia5.jpg" alt="Zenonia 5" width="640" height="427">

We’re up to the fifth Zenonia already? Well, good. They’re solid RPGs. And they’re compatible with iPad now? Even better! They were kind of hard to manage on those tiny iPhone and iPod touch
screens. And they’re free? Aweso … wait, with in-app purchases? Oh. Well, here’s Zenonia: Wheel of Destiny anyway.

ZENONIA 5 takes place long after the battles of Regret in the previous ZENONIA 4, as a once…

Continue reading The Wheel of Destiny rolls onto iPhone and iPad with Zenonia 5

Related posts:

1. Zenonia 3 now available for iPhone and iPod touch
2. Appletell reviews Zenonia for iPhone, iPod touch
3. Appletell reviews Zenonia 2 for iPhone, iPod touch

While Siri pushed the idea of a personal assistant app to the fore, apps like Google Now and Grockr are showing us that the future is in anticipating a user’s needs and proactively delivering information and completing tasks. Now, a new app called EasilyDo is showing how a personal assistant app can become even more sentient and proactive.

EasilyDo, which is debuting Thursday on the iPhone and iPod Touch, combines more than 20 productivity apps, but it’s more than just a roll-up of existing services. Like Google Now, it anticipates when a user needs to rely on one of these services and offers to complete a task proactively at the right time. I have yet to try out the app, so I have to see if it can deliver as promised. But if it does, it could change the way we use our smartphones and it could also undercut a lot of standalone apps that take on discrete services.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company announced Thursday it has raised $4.3 million in funding to build out its app. U.S. Venture Partners, where CEO and co-founder Mikael Berner was entrepreneur in residence, and Mayfield Fund are participating in the round, which started as a seed round but became a Series A.

Here’s what EasilyDo does:

It pulls in data from Facebook, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and LinkedIn and looks at a user’s calendar and contacts. It then starts creating cards that represent tasks that a user would like to act on. For very timely tasks, it delivers a push notification to alert a user.

So if a friend’s birthday comes up, EasilyDo will send a note a few days early and offer to send their friend a gift card from Amazon, Target or Starbucks. It will also use sentiment analysis and natural language processing to scan a user’s Facebook newsfeed to pull out big news that they might miss. The app will even pre-format a comment based on whether congratulations or condolences are in order.

EasilyDo will review a user’s address book and merge duplicate contacts. And if a user emails someone frequently who’s not in their address book, EasilyDo offers to create a new contact for them.

For people on the move, EasilyDo will alert them when to leave to make their next appointment and will offer to deliver “I’m late” messages to attendees if they’re falling behind. It can also offer to text message a contact when they leave the office and head home. If a user has a conference call, the app will automatically dial in so they don’t have to mess with conference call numbers and passwords. The app can also track packages and receipts and alert users when a package has shipped.

EasilyDo was created by Berner, who sold his previous company BeVocal to Nuance and became SVP of Nuance’s enterprise devision, and Hetal Pandya, a former director at Nuance. Berner said the goal was to eat into some of the 35,000 decisions that a user faces each day and help them tackle some of them proactively. That’s what separates it from Siri, which still requires a user to begin an action, Berner said.

“If the information is there, we just put a task forward and see if a user wants to do it. Why tell Siri what your father’s birthday is? We get it and can offer it to you a couple of days before,” Berner told me in an interview. “We want to be the one that executes the task.”

EasilyDo competes with a lot of different services right now like Facebook Gifts, Slice for package and receipt tracking, MobileDay for conference calling, Twist for making it to an appointment on time. Berner said he’s not looking to replace any of those apps but if his app delivers as advertised, it could do just that.

I’m intrigued by EasilyDo because it looks pretty useful and shows how a smart personal assistant should work. We still need services like Siri to create new actions but by making a lot of our existing data available, we can let actions and information come to us. This might unnerve some privacy-obsessed users, but EasilyDo says it encrypts all of its data and keeps as little of it as possible on its servers.

And it’s not looking to sell any of it. Right now, it’s making money through affiliate fees for gift cards and Berner thinks there’s an opportunity to expand that for flights or hotel bookings. An Android version is also on the way next, though when it will be ready is not clear.

width="300" height="168" src="http://www.technologytell.com/apple/files/2012/12/xl_Snapseed-300x168.jpg" class="attachment-medium wp-post-image" alt="Snapseed" title="Snapseed">

Good news for photo enthusiasts! The $4.99 Photo Editor iPad app, Snapseed, is now available on App Store for free. Yes, it’s a great early holiday gift from Google, and that’s not all; the
search engine giant also rolled out its Android version and a Google Plus feature dubbed “Communities.” Users can join these communities according to their interests, like Photography.

Continue reading Google rolls out holiday gifts: Snapseed now available on Android, free version on iOS

Related posts:

1. Five Macintosh apps/utilities that make great Holiday Gifts
2. Fancy a Rolls-Royce? There are free apps for that
3. How to use Google Docs desktop version on iPad

On Tuesday in San Jose, Apple executives rolled out a much thinner, lighter version of the iMac, the company’s signature desktop computer, which comes in at only 5 mm thickness for both the 21.5-inch and the 27-inch model. The models will ship before the holidays, with the 21.5-inch version starting at $1299 and shipping in November, and the 27-inch starting at $1799 and shipping in December.

Apple was able to build the much thinner version of the iMac by using a technique called friction stir welding, which melds the aluminum backing and the display together, and taking out an air gab between the display and glass. The company said the new screen will have 75 percent less reflection.

The last iMac updgrade came in May 2011, meaning these changes will come just in time for the holidays for consumers looking for a new model.

The new iMac will have four USB 3.0 ports, two Thunderbolt and gigabit Ethernet ports, as well as a FaceTime camera and dual mics. It will weigh only eight pounds, although it’s hard to imagine many people carrying them from place to place. The device will also for the first time be available with an optional hybrid drive dubbed “Fusion Drive” that combines Flash and traditional HDD storage, offering much faster access to often-used applications.

While Tim Cook was busy apologizing to customers for releasing a sub-par Maps app, the iPhone 5 launched continued in 22 new countries Friday morning.

Apple’s most important product this year, the new iPhone 5, is drawing lines of buyers, as videos posted to YouTube show. AppleInsider has gathered videos from launches in New Zealand, Denmark, Italy, Poland and Spain, which look like you’d expect an Apple launch would: customers queued outside retailers in anticipation, Apple employees riling up the crowd, some waiting in the rain for the chance to be first to grab one of the new phones.

A screen grab from YouTube video outside iPhone 5 launch in Auckland, New Zealand shows a sizable crowd.

The iPhone 5 is now available in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. That joins the nine countries that got the device last Friday, bringing the launch to 31 countries in just one week — Apple’s fastest iPhone rollout yet.

It’s reminiscent of Antennagate in 2010 that the worldwide iPhone launch has been marred by bad press resulting from a product failure. And like the antenna problem of the iPhone 4, Apple has chosen to confront the problem by addressing it directly with customers, as Cook did Friday.

But are the complaints about Apple’s map failures actually having a negative impact on sales? That’s not clear yet. Apple sold 5 million iPhones last weekend, with sales beginning a day and a half after problems with Maps started leaking out. And in this fresh batch of countries Friday, after more than a week of carping by customers and even Apple’s competitors exploiting the weakness of Apple’s mapping data, customers are still lining up to buy the new phones.

class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-101669" title="jacklumber-640w" src="http://www.technologytell.com/apple/files/2012/08/jacklumber-640w.jpg" alt="Jack Lumber" width="640" height="426" />

Jack was an ordinary lumberjack, until the day a tree killed his beloved grandmother. Now he’s out for revenge and will hike the trails of Flapjack Forest, trudge through the Loggers Bog, and ascend Widowmaker’s Peak until he brings justice to the forest with superhuman powers. Just be careful to not hurt the cute animals.

Jack Lumber is the first game from SEGA Alliance, a new publishing company that focuses on mobile games made by independent developers. In addition to their games being published, developers will receive marketing and production support as well as creative consultation. With as many games on the App Store, this is a good way to get noticed and to apply the final polish that can turn a game from ho-hum to awesome.

Jack Lumber’s website has more screenshots and a newsletter you can subscribe to so you will get the latest news concerning our favorite lumberjack.

You can buy Jack Lumber on the App Store for iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation) and iPad running iOS 4.0 or later. Until August 18th you can get it for $0.99 with it going to the regular price of $1.99 afterwards.