Creating folders for apps

• If you’re in rearrange mode – by tapping and holding on an app on the home screen until the app icons start to shake – creating folders is easy and intuitive: You only need to drag an app icon over an other app icon and the iOS instantly creates a folder and automatically names it.
• The folder opens up and shows the included apps.
• You can change the automatic generated folder name by clicking into the rounded white name field.

Rename an existing folder for apps

• Changing existing titles of folders for apps is only working in the app rearrange mode.
• So, you have to tap and hold one of the app icons on the home screen until the icons start to shake.
• Then you tap on the folder you want to rename. The folder opens up so you can see the apps and the title in edit mode.
• You only have to click on the title. Now the keyboard appears and you can rename the folder.
• Just press the home button once you are finished to exit the rearrange mode.

Hope this saves some time.

Press conference facts in short:

• Smartphones have weakspots … so the iPhone 4 shares the problem with many other smartphones
• AppleCare data shows that complains about the antenna are minimal (0,55%)
• ATT return rates are 1/3 of the return rates of the iPhone 3GS
• ATT call drop rate is a little bit higher compared with the iPhone 3GS (less than one additional call per hundred)

Conclusion from Apple:

• Updated iOS 4.0.1 – Fixes bars and Exchange bug
• Free iPhone case for every iPhone 4 customer … or a full refund for the bumper if you already bought one
• … if you’re still not happy … you’ll get a full refund if you return your undamaged iPhone 4 within 30 days of purchase.

So the expectations are high … and for all of us, who are not able to attend the Steve Jobs show at the Moscone West Center in San Francisco live: Here are some of the most important live coverage blogs for the WWDC keynote 2010:

• Jason Snell & Dan Moren, Macworld.com
• Jason Chen for Gizmodo … won’t get access to the keynote – because of the iPhone 4G case
• Erica Ogg for cnet news
• Joshua Topolsky for engadget
• John Paczkowski for All Things Digital
• Technologizer-Staff for Technologizer
• Ars-Staff for Ars Technica
• Greg Kumparak for TechCrunch / CrunchGear

As soon as the video of the keynote is available as a Quicktime stream … you’ll get an update

1. Multitasking – specific functionalities, like audio or VoIP, can run in the background, now. Also fast switching between apps by preserving the exact status within the app can now be enabled. To achieve all this in a battery- and cpu-preserving way, app developers need to integrate these new features explicitly by using those new APIs. Apple provides the developers with seven multitasking services via the iPhone OS 4.0 SDK:
   - Background audio … example app: Pandora
   - Voice over IP … example app: skype
   - Background location … example apps: tomtom, Loopt
   - Push notification
   - Local notifications
   - Task completion … example app: Flickr
   - Fast app switching … example app: TapTap
2. Folders – Now, apps can be organized within folders. Using folders, you can install a maximum of 2.160 apps instead of 180 on your iPhone
3. Mail – Improved Mail-app with unified inbox, multi Exchange accounts, fast inbox switching, threaded messages and open attachment with apps.
4. iBooks – the iPad iBook-Reader and the iBookstore are transformed for the iPhone.
5. Enterprise – the operating system addresses the needs of major companies for handling large installations of iPhones as their corporate communication devices:
   - Even better data protection
   - Mobile Device Management
   - Wireless app distribution
   - Multiple Exchange Accounts
   - Exchange Server 2010
   - SSL VPN support
6. Game Center – Now, game developers can use the social gaming network built into the native iPhone SDK:
   - Invite Friends
   - Automatic Matchmaking
   - Leaderborads
   - Achievements
7. iAd – Mobile Advertisement – Apple implements a mobile advertisement service deep into the iPhone OS itself. The revenue share is an industry “standard” of 60% for the developer and 40% of the advertisement revenues for Apple.

Again, Apple achieved to integrate a bundle of innovations into the next iPhone generation … very good news for the growing number of iPhone-developers. Other players in the mobile industry, like Google’s AdMob, have to expect heavy seas ahead. This leads me to one of these wonderful Bob Dylan songs: “The times they are a changing …”

Happy Valentine’s day 2010!

Last year, 30 German iPhone developers joint their forces and reduced their app prices to the max to make you smile on Valentine’s day … this year everything is bigger: Now more than 80 apps are reduced to the max to please our customers.
CompareMe shopping utility is also available for $0.99. So check out AppsForSale.de maybeyou’ll find a real bargain. Only on 14.02.2010!

rails server

At first, when running on bundler 0.9.3, I had two types of errors. The first NoMethodError populated the terminal with hundreds lines of code, like …

WARNING:  # NoMethodError: undefined method ` ' for nil:NilClass 
# -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-
...
WARNING:  Invalid .gemspec format in \
'.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/specifications/spec.gemspec'

The bundler-team around Carlhuda fixed that issue within bundler 0.9.4. So that problem will not occur any more.
The other problem was quite persistent. When starting the server via

rails server

or doing a test via

rake

within the rails-3-project resulted in a bunch of warnings:

/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems.rb:14: \
warning: already initialized constant VERSION
/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems.rb:14: \
warning: already initialized constant RubyGemsVersion
/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems.rb:194: \
warning: already initialized constant MUTEX
/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems.rb:196: \
warning: already initialized constant RubyGemsPackageVersion
/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems.rb:202: \
warning: already initialized constant WIN_PATTERNS
/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems.rb:1079:\
 warning: already initialized constant MARSHAL_SPEC_DIR
/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems.rb:1084: \
warning: already initialized constant YAML_SPEC_DIR
/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems/version.rb:72: \
warning: already initialized constant VERSION_PATTERN
/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems/requirement.rb:20: \
warning: already initialized constant OPS
/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems/requirement.rb:30: \
warning: already initialized constant OP_RE
/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems/version.rb:246: \
warning: already initialized constant Requirement
/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems/dependency.rb:18: \
warning: already initialized constant TYPES
/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems/platform.rb:171: \
warning: already initialized constant RUBY
/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems/platform.rb:177: \
warning: already initialized constant CURRENT
/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems/specification.rb:39: \
warning: already initialized constant NONEXISTENT_SPECIFICATION_VERSION
/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems/specification.rb:50: \
warning: already initialized constant CURRENT_SPECIFICATION_VERSION
/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems/specification.rb:56: \
warning: already initialized constant SPECIFICATION_VERSION_HISTORY
/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems/specification.rb:72: \
warning: already initialized constant MARSHAL_FIELDS
/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems/specification.rb:75: \
warning: already initialized constant TODAY
/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems/source_index.rb:593: \
warning: already initialized constant Cache
/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems/config_file.rb:14: \
warning: already initialized constant DEFAULT_BACKTRACE
/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems/config_file.rb:15: \
warning: already initialized constant DEFAULT_BENCHMARK
/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems/config_file.rb:16: \
warning: already initialized constant DEFAULT_BULK_THRESHOLD
/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems/config_file.rb:17: \
warning: already initialized constant DEFAULT_VERBOSITY
/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems/config_file.rb:18: \
warning: already initialized constant DEFAULT_UPDATE_SOURCES
/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems/config_file.rb:24: \
warning: already initialized constant OPERATING_SYSTEM_DEFAULTS
/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems/config_file.rb:30: \
warning: already initialized constant PLATFORM_DEFAULTS
/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems/config_file.rb:53: \
warning: already initialized constant SYSTEM_WIDE_CONFIG_FILE

Jeremy Kemper from the Rails core team pointed out that this is not a Rails problem, but a RubyGems issue. Ruby 1.9 ships with an outdated RubyGems … like 1.9.1p378 ships with RubyGems 1.3.1. I did update RubyGems to Version 1.3.5 by

sudo gem update --system

but this resulted in some duplicated rubygem files, which cause the error.

So how can the problem be solved? Deleting and reinstalling Ruby 1.9.1 does not have any effect … but the solution is quite simple:

If you already installed Ruby 1.9.1 and Rails 3.0 beta:

1. Be sure that you do NOT install RubyGems 1.3.5 separately after the installation of Ruby 1.9.1 – this would result in a double installation. So have that in mind when following the excellent instructions to installing Ruby, RubyGems, and Rails on Snow Leopard of Dan Benjamin.

2. If you already installed Ruby 1.9.1, updated to RubyGems 1.3.5 and bundler 0.9.4 and also installed Rails 3.0, the only thing you have to do is:

sudo gem uninstall rubygems-update

That’s it. No errors any more!

If you did not install Ruby 1.9.1 and Rails 3.0 yet …

1. You may start with Dan Benjamin’s recipe and modify it so you download, make and install the ruby-1.9.1-p378.tar.gz but NOT the rubygems-1.3.5.tgz.

2. Then update RubyGems with the command

sudo gem update --system

3. Ensure that the rake and the sqlite3-ruby gems are installed, too.

4. Now install the needed gems and rails –pre as described in the Rails 3.0 beta release notes

5. After the successful installation of Rails 3.0 beta, you now have to do the vitally important step:

sudo gem uninstall rubygems-update

6. Finally check, if any gem needs an update before diving into Rails 3.0 by

sudo gem update

Hope this helps … and saves some time. Thx Andy for the hint

Like the legendary Steve Jobs Keynotes in the past, it is quite a tradition that some journalists blog live from the event … so Apple fans all over the planet can take part on the press conference. Here are the most important liveblogs:

• Jason Snell, Dan Moren & Jonathan Seff, Macworld.com
• Jason Chen for Gizmodo
• Erica Ogg for cnet news
• Joshua Topolsky for engadget
• John Paczkowski for All Things Digital
• Technologizer staff for Technologizer
• Ars staff for Ars Technica
• John Biggs for TechCrunch / CrunchGear
• Brian X. Chen for Gadget Lab at Wired

As soon as the videorecording of the event is online as a Quicktime videostream … there’ll be an update

Apple did not announce that the company will be engaged in the e-book or tablet-market – but the rumors about an “iSlate” or “iPad” are quite persistent. Therefore Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer tried to steal Apple the show at his keynote at the CES in Las Vegas: He just renamed the tablet-PCs on stage as “slate-PCs” … but it’s not about a name.

Kindle Development Kit (picture: Amazon)

Amazon is probably in a better starting position in the battle for market shares in the emerging market of Active Content: They have a lot of experience with content distribution with the Kindle and they are in direct contact with the publishers … but Apple has the ability to rouse the e-book-market from slumber by innovation. They may transfer the pathetic e-books into a new and emerging market: Active Content.

There are a lot of advantages for Apple to tip the scales:

• big and growing iPhone SDK developer community … Amazon has to build up a comparable dev community around the KDK
• well-engineered and sophisticated iPhone SDK … with a full bandwidth of network-, graphic-, data- and sensor-support
• color instead of grayscale screens and computing and graphic power
• touchscreen with gestures
• amazing design
• … and there are probably some innovations we don’t expect

Amazon’s move to open up the Kindle to 3rd party developers and create a platform for Active Content is absolutely right … but can it compete with Apples offering? On January 27th 2010 we’ll know much, much more.