More details on the iPad mini new multitouch feature

by Justin Horn on Oct 23rd, 2012 @ 7:22 pm

Well first off, it’s not a new feature. Back in early September I noticed that on iOS 6 beta, the multitouch was working a bit different than I remembered on my iPhone 4S. Today with the announcement of the iPad mini, Apple actually brings up the change when discussing the thinner bezels:

 Rethinking the screen meant we also had to rethink the software behind it. iPad mini intelligently recognizes whether your thumb is simply resting on the display or whether you’re intentionally interacting with it. It’s the kind of detail you’ll notice — by not noticing it. And it’s a great example of how Apple hardware and software work together to give you the best experience possible.

Couple things I’d like to clarify that I think some other missed when discussing this feature:

1. This isn’t an iPad mini feature, but an iOS 6 feature. That’s why I noticed this on my 4S with the iOS 6 beta back in September.

2. It’s not “ignoring the thumb on the side of the screen”, but actually recognizing more touches on the screen. Before iOS 6, once the first finger touched the screen, all other inputs would be ignored. So a thumb on the side of the screen would almost be acting as a screen lock. With iOS 6, your devices can detect 2+ (I’ve tried up to 4 fingers on my iPhone 5) touches at the same time. Keep in mind, I’m not referring to the special multitouch gestures, such as pinch to zoom which has always used 2 fingers, but just regular non-gesture touches. As you can see in my YouTube video from September at the top of this post, I’m actually able to move one finger up on the screen and then move it down with the other, without every lifting either finger off the screen.

 

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iOS 6, iPad, iPhone

iPhone 5 cellular usage while on WIFI bug affects AT&T users as well

by Justin Horn on Oct 1st, 2012 @ 7:24 pm

AppleInsider is now reporting that the bug affecting Verizon customers may also be affecting AT&T and Sprint as well. This makes perfect sense to me after I ran into some weird data issues on iPhone launch day. Here’s my story…

I was out of town in NYC when the iPhone 5 came out, so I sent my preorder to a friend’s office in Manhattan.  So after getting the phone around 12:30PM I went over to Brother Jimmy’s on Lex to have lunch and setup my new phone. I did just the basic activation over mobile data, then I found a free, fast WIFI, thanks to NYU Langone Medical Center. I setup as a new phone, so didn’t do a big iCloud restore. Once on WIFI, I just started downloading apps and a few albums of music from iTunes Match.

Within a few hours of my initial setup, I got a 65% usage warning text on my 2GB plan. I thought it was a bug, so didn’t think about it too much. Then a little while later I got the 90% warning. Then for some strange reason I got another  65% warning. That was promptly followed up about 15 minutes later by a 100% warning.

Checking the data usage on my phone it looks like I actually did burn through a lot of data, even though I was on WIFI for most of the setup process.

I posted this on Twitter about 8PM on launch day, although most of that usage was done within less than 2 hours:

 Um, think I’m going to have an expensive cell phone bill this month. Activated as a new phone at 12:30 EST. it’s 8:30PM

Now it gets even weirderer, 10 days later (still in same billing cycle), my data usage on the AT&T iPhone app shows only 500 MB out of the 2GB.  I’m thinking AT&T may have know about the problem and done some sort of reset? As of right now, my phone is showing about 2.1 GB of data usage since I setup the phone. So I guess I’ll find out what’s going to happen with my data usage in a few days when I get the bill for this past cycle. I’ll update the post when that happens.

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iOS 6, iPhone 5

Tim Cook responds to iOS 6 Map app issues in public letter

by Justin Horn on Sep 28th, 2012 @ 9:23 am

Tim Cook:

To our customers,

At Apple, we strive to make world-class products that deliver the best experience possible to our customers. With the launch of our new Maps last week, we fell short on this commitment. We are extremely sorry for the frustration this has caused our customers and we are doing everything we can to make Maps better.

We launched Maps initially with the first version of iOS. As time progressed, we wanted to provide our customers with even better Maps including features such as turn-by-turn directions, voice integration, Flyover and vector-based maps. In order to do this, we had to create a new version of Maps from the ground up.

There are already more than 100 million iOS devices using the new Apple Maps, with more and more joining us every day. In just over a week, iOS users with the new Maps have already searched for nearly half a billion locations. The more our customers use our Maps the better it will get and we greatly appreciate all of the feedback we have received from you.

While we’re improving Maps, you can try alternatives by downloading map apps from the App Store like Bing, MapQuest and Waze, or use Google or Nokia maps by going to their websites and creating an icon on your home screen to their web app.

Everything we do at Apple is aimed at making our products the best in the world. We know that you expect that from us, and we will keep working non-stop until Maps lives up to the same incredibly high standard.

Tim Cook
Apple’s CEO

Good to see Apple respond to this. Not really saying too much, but admitting they fell short and are working to improve is a step in the right direction. People can respect that, rather than feeling Apple’s arrogance if they kept ignoring or denying the issue. I don’t see any other way they could have responded. In this case the critics were right, the new Maps was a step down in usability, with the only bright spots being the 3D mode and turn by turn.

I miss Steve a lot here though, he would’ve just told us we were tapping it wrong.

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iOS 6

Multitouch improved on iOS 6

by Justin Horn on Sep 11th, 2012 @ 1:22 pm

UPDATE 2 Looks like we now have the biggest reason for this change, the iPad mini.

I noticed recently that multitiouch on iOS 6 beta seems to have improved, it now recognizes a second finger touch. On iOS 5 a touch with a second finger while the first finger was still on the screen would ignore all input from the second finger.  After noticing this improvement, I double checked I wasn’t crazy by testing this on my girlfriend’s iPhone 4 with iOS 5 (don’t feel too bad, I’m getting her an iPhone 5 soon)  and it worked as I remembered. I haven’t tested on a 4S with iOS 5 since noticing this, but I’m pretty confident this is a software related, not hardware.

Hoping that this is the first step to bringing multitouch gestures to the iPhone.

UPDATE Just to clarify a little more, this is different than the previously usable multitouch gestures, like pinch to zoom. This is basically recognizing two simultaneous inputs doing non-gestures. Like in my demo video below, just a regular swipe up and down. You can also see when I bring the two fingers towards each other the slide up and down cancels out.

Here’s a short video demonstrating what I mean by multiple touch inputs.

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Featured post, iOS 6, iPhone, Speculation

Shit Apple fanatics say, part 2

by Justin Horn on Sep 7th, 2012 @ 5:14 pm

This one is better than part 1.

(via iDownloadBlog)

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Featured post, Humor, iOS, iPad, iPhone

Shit Apple fanatics say, part 1

by Justin Horn on Sep 6th, 2012 @ 12:00 pm

A bit long, but still pretty funny.

Also, you might find these unrelated “shit says” videos funny if you’re from Miami like me.

(via The Loop)

Follow me on Twitter @justin_horn



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Humor, iOS, iPad, iPhone

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