I hadn’t downloaded Purchased apps for the app store in a while, but when setting up my new iPad (since I did it as new) I was downloading my apps using this method and to my surprise I was able to quickly go through the list tapping the download button next to each app while staying in the app store. The icon just changed to [Installing] then [Installed], making it quite easy to get all my old apps back on my new iPad.  Sadly updating and installing first time downloads still takes you back to the home screen.

Why does Apple do this? My guess for new apps is to see where your new app’s home is on the home screen.  I think it’s unnecessary, but what do I know?  Why they do it for updating apps is anyone’s guess, although it’s not quite as annoying for updates as it is when you are shopping around in the app store.

What do you think about this? Piss you off or you couldn’t care less? Comment or Tweet me @justin_horn

Conan O’Brien showing off that he’s just as tech savvy as Jimmy Fallon. Good stuff.

Via Philip Elmer-DeWitt

The upcoming wild card games, the Pro Bowl and the Super Bowl — TV’s most-watched annual event — will be streamed for free to computers on NFL.com and NBCSports.com.

That’s the good news. The bad is for mobile devices it’s Verizon only, plus there is an extra fee for non LTE devices like the iPhone and iPad:

Verizon smartphones with a high-speed 4G LTE data plan can stream the games through the NFL Mobile app for free, a spokeswoman for the carrier said. Mobile devices with 3G service, such as the iPhone, iPad or older smartphones, require a $10-per-month Verizon Video subscription, she said.

I’m on AT&T for my iPhone and have a WIFI only iPad, I’ll be watching on the old fashion DVR and HDTV.

UPDATE 2 Official blog post with announcement is live (via @atul)

UPDATE 3 It’s out, go get it!

The Verge (This Is My Next):

 After lots of rumored drama and supposed delays, Facebook is finally (and we mean finally!) rolling out Facebook for iPad. And surprisingly, it looks almost identical to the version we saw leaked out back in July with a nice two-pane view and strong resemblance to the iPhone app.

Apparently it doesn’t contain the latest Timeline views, but it’s a start.

The Verge also reporting about some nice updates for the iPhone app:

But that’s not all that’s new today — Facebook is updating its iPhone app with bookmarks to apps, a new Requests dialog that will display app notifications, and support for Facebook Credits for in-app payments.

I still don’t see this live on the store, but be sure to follow us on Twitter and we’ll let you know when we do!

From the official Facebook page about the new app:

A New Way to Experience Facebook

It’s been two weeks since iOS 5 and iCloud became available for developers and to be honest I’ve been busy playing with iOS 5 and haven’t seen much of iCloud until now.

The first thing I remember was the setup, after installing iOS 5 it prompted me to enter my Apple ID and enable iCloud. After that, the only thing I tried was backing up my devices to the cloud, which still freaks me out a bit, since everything is in a hard drive in the sky. The process was very seamless, turned on the option and it just worked, or at least I think it worked. After the first backup, you can go deeper into the settings and select which app’s data you want to keep and which ones you don’t.

The second feature I noticed was the cloud icon in iTunes store which shows up on apps you have purchased on a different device, which brings me to the next point. Now both music and app store show a “purchased” category, where you can see your entire purchase history, it even has a “Not On This iDevice” tab to make it easy to see what your missing.  Tap the cloud icon next to the song or app and your iDevice immediately starts downloading. You can download previously purchased songs and apps, even if you bought them on another iDevice or iTunes. Yeah, it’s kind of a pain in the ass, which is what Stevie was saying “keeping all our devices in sync is driving us crazy.”

This next feature will make synchronizing a cinch. In the new iTunes 10.3 and the latest non beta iOS 4.3.3 devices, you can turn on Automatic Downloads for music, apps, and books. With this option on, anything you buy on one device, say your iPhone, will automatically appear on your other devices (Mac, iPad, etc.), keeping all devices in sync. The only problem I see is you might not want to have every app on all your devices, but that’s easily solved by deleting it from the device you don’t want it on.

What else is cool? Photo Stream, it just works. Take a picture with your iPad and it shows up on your iPhone, what else do I need to say? Well, actually I think it would be even cooler if it allowed me to share a stream or photo album with other users, now that would be awesome!

Things I haven’t been able to test: Documents in the cloud and calendar sharing. I can’t seem to find the way to share a calendar with another iCloud user. As for Documents in the cloud, Pages didn’t prompt me to use iCloud for storage like was seen during the Keynote and there’s no sign of the feature in the app. So I don’t know, maybe they haven’t enabled that feature yet?

In response to Lauren Carlson‘s Can Apple iCloud make it rain in the Enterprise? From what I’ve seen and what we know of the way iCloud is setup, my answer would have to be not yet. Unless you are, at the very least, able to share documents with other users through iCloud, it won’t be adopted in a business environment. This is something that undoubtedly will come, if not from Apple, from third party developers now that the iCloud APIs are available.

What do I think so far? Honestly, I’m still processing. It’s hard to asses something when I’ve only seen half of it, but what I’ve seen so far, I like…

UPDATE iPhone works the same way with the exception of one extra step activating on the carrier network, which I assume the 3G iPad would do as well.

Apple has finally “cut the cord”!

iCloud.com is now directing to the official iCloud page

http://www.apple.com/icloud/