Launch Center puts Messages, Facebook, Twitter, a flashlight and more in your iPhone Notification Center [Macworld 2012]
Launch Center, a new shortcuts app for iPhone, aims to make everything from sending messages and mail to posting on Facebook and Twitter, to turning on your LED flashlight, faster and easier via an extremely clever, borderline audacious use of URL schemes and iOS 5′s Notification Center.
Produced by David Barnard of App Cubby fame, it boasts an absolutely gorgeous user interface that lets you easily set up which actions you want to appear in your Notification Center from a robust set of shortcut that include Phone, SMS/iMessage, Email, Twitter, Facebook, Flashlight, Google search, and Custom URL schemes. (That last one, for more advanced users especially, should make Launch Center an instant buy.)
Live from Macworld|iWorld 2012, David showed off some of the new features in the recent Launch Center 1.1 update, including scheduled launch actions — for example if you know you need to SMS your wife every morning or email your boss the report every friday at noon.
David’s keeping Launch Center in his dock now, since using Launch Center to quickly call a favorite or send a message is faster than tapping and pecking through screens of apps and layers of menus.
Hopefully Apple finds a way to balance security and accessibility in the next version of iOS so apps like Launch Center can start to do even more fantastic, time saving things.
- $0.99 – App Store link
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Penultimate talks iPad stylus
Rene and I are at Macworld 2012 and had the pleasure of talking to Penultimate developer Ben Zotto. You, the iMore nation, asked us to ask Ben his thoughts on styli for the iPad, so we did! Check out the video above for Ben’s insights on the personal decision of choosing a stylus.
Here’s a list of the ones he mentioned:
- Pogo Sketch Pro – $24.95 – Amazon link
- Pogo Sketch Plus – $14.95 – Ten One Design link
- Wacom Bamboo – $25.43 – Amazon link
- Cosmonaut – $25 – Studio Neat link
What’s your favorite stylus to use with Penultimate?
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Google’s new privacy policy and “don’t be don’t be evil”
Probably like many of you, I received my new Google Privacy Policy via email this week, and while couched in language about creating a more “beautiful” experience for us, the users — read: products — it’s also clearly about Google leveraging their popular services like Search and Gmail to help their new services, like Google+, become competitive with Facebook and Twitter.
Because Facebook and Twitter scare the shit out of Google and when companies, like people, are scared they do dumb things.
Google in particular, once the brash, brazen upstart that gave the proverbial middle finger to old, portal-style search sites and promised to always deliver the best results, not just the best Google-owned results, is struggling with their inner demons now. They don’t want to be replaced by social search the way their authoritative search replaced Yahoo! and Alta Vistas of old.
I’ve riffed before that any company sufficiently large is indistinguishable from evil. As they grow, as they face competitive pressures, the interests and agendas of their shareholders, stakeholders, and executives increasingly and more noticeably diverge from the interests of their users. From us.
They, like many of us, become the parents they used to despise.
Why does this matter to me and why am I posting it on iMore, an iPhone and iPad focused site? Because I’m a huge user of Google services and iPhone and iPad users in general are huge users of Google’s services. We use Google Search, Gmail, Maps, YouTube, and other services every day. We give Google massive amounts of personal information. We give them our trust. And that absolutely means we have both the right and obligation to hold them to that trust.
According to Sarah Lacey at PandoDaily, Google’s new, “don’t be don’t be evil” direction has become a concern even for many Googlers past and present, and the silence surrounding it is stymying even internal PR.
Good. This shouldn’t be easy. It should be messy and public and painful, and if Google wants to keep getting and using our data, they should keep earning that privilege.
Hopefully the rumors of Larry Page not wanting to hear any opposition to their new Google+ strategy are false, and like Apple and Facebook have sometimes done in the past, Google’s more unpopular new policies will be reversed, and soon.
Check the source link below for more on the issues surrounding Google’s new, more publicly evil direction, and read on for the new privacy policy in full.
More: Page Rage Escalates As Google Cancels Twitter Android Meeting
Dear Google user,
We’re getting rid of over 60 different privacy policies across Google and replacing them with one that’s a lot shorter and easier to read. Our new policy covers multiple products and features, reflecting our desire to create one beautifully simple and intuitive experience across Google.
We believe this stuff matters, so please take a few minutes to read our updated Privacy Policy and Terms of Service at http://www.google.com/policies. These changes will take effect on March 1, 2012.
One policy, one Google experience
Easy to work across Google
Our new policy reflects a single product experience that does what you need, when you want it to. Whether you’re reading an email that reminds you to schedule a family get-together or finding a favorite video that you want to share, we want to ensure you can move across Gmail, Calendar, Search, YouTube, or whatever your life calls for with ease.
Tailored for you
If you’re signed into Google, we can do things like suggest search queries – or tailor your search results – based on the interests you’ve expressed in Google+, Gmail, and YouTube. We’ll better understand which version of Pink or Jaguar you’re searching for and get you those results faster.
Easy to share and collaborate
When you post or create a document online, you often want others to see and contribute. By remembering the contact information of the people you want to share with, we make it easy for you to share in any Google product or service with minimal clicks and errors.
Protecting your privacy hasn’t changed
Our goal is to provide you with as much transparency and choice as possible, through products like Google Dashboard and Ads Preferences Manager, alongside other tools. Our privacy principles remain unchanged. And we’ll never sell your personal information or share it without your permission (other than rare circumstances like valid legal requests).
Got questions?
We’ve got answers.
Visit our FAQ at http://www.google.com/policies/faq to read more about the changes. (We figured our users might have a question or twenty-two.)
Notice of Change
March 1, 2012 is when the new Privacy Policy and Terms will come into effect. If you choose to keep using Google once the change occurs, you will be doing so under the new Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.
Please do not reply to this email. Mail sent to this address cannot be answered. Also, never enter your Google Account password after following a link in an email or chat to an untrusted site. Instead, go directly to the site, such as mail.google.com or www.google.com/accounts. Google will never email you to ask for your password or other sensitive information.
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Yahoo cancels some of their mobile apps, plans to keep moving and keep innovating
Yahoo has announced that they’re canceling some of their mobile apps in an effort to — wait for it — keep moving and keep innovating. Some of the apps that will be discontinued include:
- Yahoo! Meme (iPad and iPhone)
- Yahoo! Mim (iPad)
- Yahoo! Answers (Android)
- Yahoo! AppSpot (Android and iPhone)
- Yahoo! Deals (iPhone)
- Yahoo! Finance (BlackBerry)
- Yahoo! Movies (Android)
- Yahoo! News (Android)
- Yahoo! Shopping (iPhone)
- Yahoo! Sketch-a-Search (iPad and iPhone)
Yahoo has been in the mobile space for quite some time and managed to amass a good amount of apps so looking to cut some of their weight and move on isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The decommissioning of these apps, as Yahoo noted, will allow them to put more effort into creating other applications, like LiveStand in the mobile space. Of course, the apps that Yahoo! cut weren’t really up there in terms of usage and it’s hard to imagine anyone will be sad to see any of them go.
Source: Yahoo via: Android Central
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Apple claims top smartphone vendor spot after Q4 results, iPhone is now 8.3% of all mobile phones
Strategy Analytics has crunched most of the fourth quarter results announced this week (including Apple’s), and figures the iPhone maker is now the top smartphone manufacturer, but only by a sliver. In Q4 2011, Apple claimed 23.9% of global smartphone market share, and Samsung trailed only slightly, with 23.5%. That’s just counting Q4, too; for the whole year, Samsung beat out Apple by a single percentage point.
Beyond smartphones, in the world of mobiles at large, Apple was relatively far behind. iPhones constituted 8.3% of the world’s handsets, while Nokia still clung the top spot with 25.5%, followed by Samsung with 21.3% global market share. Although that shows the iPhone still has a long ways to go, it did boast the best growth out of the three; during the same quarter last year, Apple only constituted 4.0% of the global market.
The folks at Strategy Analytics stepped in for a few comments. Associate Director Alex Spektor said “Apple’s growth was fueled by intense demand for its refreshed iPhone 4S, as well as the availability of three generations of iPhones at a variety of price points at operators like AT&T in the United States,” but there’s a lot of promise internationally, too. Tom Kang, another director, said ”China is becoming a key market for Apple this year, and we expect Apple’s share to grow rapidly in 2012, despite countless copycat rivals.” Nokia’s having a rough time holding onto their top spot, despite generally positive reviews of their first Windows Phones. According to Executive Director Neil Mawston, “Nokia’s global handset shipments declined 8 percent annually to 113.5 million units in Q4 2011. Volumes were buoyed by the sales of Nokia’s low-end dual-SIM models in emerging markets like Southeast Asia, but were a little soft overall, as initial shipments of Microsoft Lumia phones could not offset declining Symbian sales.”
It’s rarely a surprise to see Apple doing well in terms of sales, but they’ll have to keep working hard in order to stay ahead of Samsung. We’re seeing lots of different Android phones coming out of Samsung to address different price points, and though Spektor’s right that there are older iPhones still on the market, they lack the forward-compatibility of many Android handsets.
It’s worth noting that according to Strategy Analytics, the overall smartphone market grew 63.1% in 2011, versus 71.4% growth in 2010. Do you guys think smartphone momentum is starting to plateau, or is this just a slight bump in the road?
Source: Strategy Analytics via Apple Insider
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