Author: jamesclay

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Your name’s not on the list, so you’re not allowed in….

According to PC World (Magazine) Apple recently decided to “ban” a magazine app from the iTunes Store, because it was focused on the Android operating system.

As one might guess, Android Magasinet–a brand-new, bimonthly magazine app from Danish publisher Mediaprovider–focuses on Android and the devices that run it. When Mediaprovider managing director Brian Dixen asked an executive from Apple Worldwide Developer Relations why the app was banned, he was told explicitly that it was the magazine’s Android-focused content, according to a report on Mediawatch.

“You know… your magazine…it’s just about Android…. we can’t have that in our App Store,” the Apple executive reportedly told Dixen.

Read more.

Is this really “offensive” content or is this about competition?

Fair enough Apple can decide themselves what does and what does not go into the App store and I guess there would be other (less lucrative) channels that Mediaprovider could use for the Android based magazine so that iPad owners could read it.

Bizarre behaviour from Apple, but then we have come to expect that.

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Updated the Apple TV

I have updated my Apple TV to 4.1.

I’ve not really noticed any different as I haven’t been using it much before I updated.

Having used it a little more recently I have found that it is much faster than Front Row on my Mac mini for moving between media from the iMac downstairs. As a lot of my media is in standard definition the 720p resolution hasn’t been much of a problem. Also all my iTunes HD content is 720p so the fact that it can’t play 1080p content at 1080p is at this time not so much of a problem. I wonder for the future whether this would be a software upgrade or (more likely) Apple will release a new model of the Apple TV.

It’s a pity that BBC iPlayer and other similar services aren’t available on the Apple TV, I personally would like to see 4OD on the Apple TV.

So will we see Apps for the Apple TV in the future, one can hope.

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Yes it was

So the big iTunes announcement was that the Beatles were coming (finally) to the iTunes store.

Good news for Beatles fans who don’t already own any Beatles music on CD then…

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Beatles on iTunes?

So this afternoon Apple have an iTunes announcement.

Rumours indicate that this is probably going to be an announcement that the Beatles will now be available in the iTunes Store.

Another rumour indicates that Apple will announce live streaming for iTunes.

I wonder if the wording of the “invitation” is significant? It does say iTunes and not iTunes Store. Does that make a difference?

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Learners use Facebook to record evidence of work experience

Learners on the Preparing For Employment Programme (PREP) at Tyne Metropolitan College are using Facebook, the popular social networking website, to help them keep a diary while attending a work experience placement. The diary is used as evidence for this unit, which is part of the Certificate in Employability and Personal Development. Facebook also helps the tutor to keep in touch and be more involved with the learners while they are away from the College.

Read more.

There are e-safety issues with using Facebook in this way, however with adequate guidelines in place for both staff and students, and under the assumption that students will check Facebook more often than college provided tools, this will remind then of the curriculum need to keep a diary.

Personally I would prefer using Posterous which can either be used with e-mail, on the web, or using mobile apps, as it would be a little easier for learners to post photographs and video to an online diary. From a privacy perspective, in my opinion it is easier to lock down Posterous than it is Facebook streams.

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EyeTV Netstream Sat

Elgato have announced  a new version of their Netstream device, the EyeTV Netstream Sat. This allows you to stream, watch and record free-to-view satellite television on any Mac or PC in the house, in full HD. If your home has an existing Wi-Fi network, you can watch live satellite TV wirelessly on a portable computer anywhere in your home or garden.

If you live in the UK then it can access the Freesat signal allowing you to access Freeview and Freeview HD channels available on Freesat.

I do quite like the fact that

  • Stream live TV over the home network to an iPad – even when your computers are turned off

At the moment I need to leave the iMac on to do this. Now I don’t actually have satellite, so would need to use the EyeTV Netstream DTT instead. However as that does not support Freeview HD and so I have decided at £230 it is more of  a luxury than essential, so I don’t mind going downstairs to turn the iMac on to watch TV on the iPad or via the Mac mini on the TV.

Hopefully one day Elgato will bring out a device that supports Freeview HD

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Twitter community angry about joke tweet prosecution

Today has seen Twitter taken over by the joke that earlier this week, after losing his appeal, Paul Chambers who was fined £1000 made earlier this year during the snow.

Dara O’Briain was among many who posted the following:

Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You’ve got a week to get your shit together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!! #IAmSpartacus

As you can see from the screenshot, another 95 people have retweeted Dara’s tweet. Dara was not along and probably thousands if not tens of thousands people tweeted the same thing…

Actually if you think about it, if a million people on Twitter sent that Tweet, all were fined, that’s £1bn that could be used to offset the spending cuts… A little bit of politics there!

There has been much written about the #IAmSpartacus meme today.

BBC News reports – Twitter anger over bomb tweeter

Guardian says – #IAmSpartacus campaign explodes on Twitter in support of airport joker

Channel 4 News writes – #Iamspartacus Twitter campaign takes off

It has also reached America, well you would expect that with Twitter.

LA Times – Twitter joke goes bad, users protest by evoking Spartacus

CNN – Mass Twitter campaign supports airport threat tweeter

The original tweet was a stupid joke, not a threat, a joke. The fact that two judges could not see that says a lot about how little the establishment understands social media. The protest may show, if Paul appeals again, that this was a joke between friends and in no way was any kind of serious threat.

That nice Stephen Fry has already said he will pay Paul’s fine.

Paul though lost his job because of the prosecution. The sad thing is that I doubt Paul will be the last person to be prosecuted for making a joke on Twitter.

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Apple TV

Though I have had my Apple TV a few weeks now, however I have not really used it, nor have I streamed any rented films either.

Now this is not because of any problem with the Apple TV. It’s partly that I haven’t watched that much television over the last few weeks and haven’t had the time to sit down and watch a film either. When I have wanted to watch something I have relied on on my EyeTV or the Mac mini that is currently under my TV. The Mac mini won’t be here forever and when it goes I am sure that the Apple TV will be used more.

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Navigate to a photo

I was using my iPhone the other day to navigate using the TomTom App when I noticed a new “destination” option, Photo!

I clicked the menu item and I was presented with a series of photographs.

Now initially I thought, well what was the point of that, if it was a photo I had taken I could (as I would be there) add the destination to the TomTom direct. That’s quite useful though as taking a photograph can be quicker than starting up the TomTom App, just have to remember not to delete it from the phone.

But looking through the photographs I realised that some of them were photographs from my photo albums and had not been taken with my iPhone, but obviously also had geo-data attached to the photo. I checked and found that the photographs were in fact taken with a Sony HDR video camera with GPS.

This made a big difference to the usefulness of this option, as somebody else could take a photograph with their GPS enabled camera, cameraphone or iPhone and send me the photo via e-mail. I could then save this and use TomTom to navigate to the GPS co-ordinates attached to the photograph. I tried this out and it worked.

I did try saving a photo from Flickr using FlickStackr, but the TomTom software didn’t pick it up, I suspect the geo-data was not included when I saved the image.