Despite offering to license the nano-SIM standard royalty-free, Apple is getting flak from RIM for recruiting additional proxies in the voting process. Nokia had made similar complaints when Apple initially made the proposal to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute. Here’s what RIM had to say about Apple employees taking voting spots for SK Telekom, Bell Mobility, and KT.

We kindly ask that neither shall a person of one company who is appointed to carrythe votes of another company be entitled to cast a vote on behalf of that company, nor shall a personof one company who is registered in the place of a person from another company and appointed tocast a vote on behalf of that other company, be allowed to cast a vote on behalf of that company.

Considering most handset manufacturers are still wrestling with the switch to micro-SIMs, establishing the next subsciber identity module standard is a long ways off. We haven’t seen much in the way of alternatives, and until someone offers one, I’m having a hard time seeing Apple’s submission being rejected. Of course, that’s not to say that Apple’s tactics for pushing their version of the micro-SIM are entirely fair, but does it make a difference if everyone adopts it in the end anyway?

Reportedly, ETSI voting on the issue will be put on hold for at least another 30 days.

Source: SlashGear

The Fair Labor Association’s report about working conditions at Foxconn, Apple’s primary manufacturing partner, vouched that workers would see fewer overtime hours without a change in pay, but employees aren’t convinced that they’ll be able to keep the same level of income. A few workers commented at the factory gates on being allowed a maximum of 49 hours a week, including overtime.

“We are worried we will have less money to spend. Of course, if we work less overtime, it would mean less money,” said Wu, a 23-year-old employee from Hunan province in south China. … ”We have just been told that we can only work a maximum of 36 hours a month of overtime. I tell you, a lot of us are unhappy with this. We think that 60 hours of overtime a month would be reasonable and that 36 hours would be too little,” she added. Chen said she now earned a bit over 4,000 yuan a month ($634).

Comments like this perfectly illustrate the inherent problem the western world’s sudden curiosity with working conditions in China; while folks like Mike Daisey are able to make a living sensationalizing and weaving a heartbreaking story about how terrible life is working at an iPhone factory, the people who are actually there just want to make a decent wage – by the sounds of it, they don’t even mind the work that much. Remember, the FLA report said that only 17.7% said they were working too much, and 33.8% said they wanted to work more in order to make more money. That said, maybe Foxconn’s next move is to simply raise the hourly rates they pay rather than cutting hours on a per-worker basis.

The FLA said that they would be doing a study on cost of living around the three factories they had audited, and based on that, will be determining if wages are adequate. Here’s an interview with the association’s CEO, which I think gives an interesting and likely more realistic perspective on Foxconn working conditions.

Source: Reuters

If you got a new iPad and immediately went to Facebook.com to play your favorite Facebook games, you may have notices they didn’t work on the iPad browser. Don’t panic! While Safari doesn’t support the Flash plugin needed to play those games in the browser, there are several other ways to get your Facebook gaming fix on your new iPad.

Facebook games in the App Store

A lot of the popular games that you play on Facebook most likely have an App Store counterpart that you can download and run on your iPad. Many of them will even let you sign in with your Facebook account to log in and it’ll bring down all your data, so you can keep playing with all your stuff, against all your friends, right where you left off.

I’ve actually found that I enjoy playing most Facebook games on my iPad rather than on the website. It’s always been a better experience for me.

Here are some App Store equivalents of your favorite Facebook game:

Angry Birds – $0.99 – Download Now

Bejeweled Blitz – Free – Download Now

FarmVille – Free – Download Now

Fruit Ninja HD – $2.99 – Download Now

Words with Friends HD – $2.99 – Download Now

Diamond Dash – Free – Download Now

While these are nowhere near all the games available on Facebook, these tend to be some of the most popular ones. If you play another game on Facebook, odds are a quick search for it in the App Store should bring up an iPad version. Most of the games listed above also have a light or ad-supported free version as well if you’d like to try before you buy.

If it doesn’t, there may still be a way to enjoy your favorite Facebook game from your iPad.

Facebook games with iSwifter

If you can’t find your favorite Facebook game in the iPad App Store, you can try the iSwifter app. It lets you access a lot of popular social games that don’t have App Store alternatives.

Free – Download now

Additional Resources:

• How to use Facebook on your new iPad
• Even more tips and tricks for new iPad users
• iMore Facebook and Social Networks forum
• iMore new iPad discussion forums

IDC has recently published projections reaching out to 2016, when they forecast iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad will snag a 17.3% share of all connected devices — that includes computers, media tablets (yes, they’re still using that term), and smartphones. By IDC’s count, iOS had claimed 14% in 2011, during which time the whole market had shipped 916 million units and made over $489 billion in revenue. By comparison, Android is predicted to grab 31.1% in 2016, though that doesn’t necessarily mean Android will be winning.

“Android’s growth is tied directly to the propagation of lower-priced devices,” said Tom Mainelli, research director, Mobile Connected Devices. “So, while we expect dozens of hardware vendors to own some share in the Android market, many will find profitability difficult to sustain. Similarly, we expect a large percentage of application developers to continue to focus their efforts on iOS, despite the platform’s smaller overall market share, because iOS end users have proven more willing to pay for high-quality apps.”

Projections are sometimes as accurate as random number generators, but the interesting thing here isn’t the market shares being discussed — it’s the idea of how, in the near future, so many of our devices will be connected. Sure, smartphones and tablets are obvious, as are PCs. What about TVs, which by all accounts are becoming connected devices with their own app ecosystems? Seeing as Apple wasn’t shy about pitting the new iPad head-to-head with high-definition televisions, I would be really curious to see how it stacks up in a market share comparison. (And then there are those persistent rumors of an Apple iTV/television that just won’t quit.

We already have connected health and fitness devices like the Fitbit or the Withings scale to Nexia home automation systems to Samsung SmartWindows to cars like the Ford Focus Electric. One day soon, very few household appliances that don’t count as “connected devices”. Fridges, washers, coffee makers, electric razors — it’s going to be a big market and a huge ecosystem, and it will be very interesting to see just how much of it Apple chooses to enter, and will be able to claim.

Source: IDC

For today only the iMore iPhone accessory store has the Seidio SURFACE Reveal Case w/ kickstand for iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 on sale for only $19.95! That’s a whopping 43% off! Get them before they’re gone!

• Shop Seidio SURFACE Reveal Case w/ kickstand for iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 now!

The SURFACE Reveal with Kickstand is the right iPhone 4S, AT&T iPhone 4, or Verizon iPhone 4 case for those who want a slim case with functional features, such as a metal kickstand.

With this redesign of the popular SURFACE Case, you'll discover a case that is even thinner than the iPhone 4S, AT&T iPhone 4, or Verizon iPhone 4 SURFACE with a cut-out revealing the Apple logo. Familiar features, such as the soft-touch coating and slide-in design, enhance the look and protect your iPhone 4S, AT&T iPhone 4, or Verizon iPhone 4.

Features:

• Sleek case at only 0.12 cm
• Magnetic built-in kickstand
• Does not attract lint
• Cutouts for all device ports and screen
• Unique slide-in design

Apple let it be known back in August of 2011 that they’d be deprecating developer access to UDID ( Universal Device Identifier), they’ve now taken the next step and begun actively rejecting App Store apps that use it. The fine developers of Tweetbot have reported that one of their latest updates was rejected from Apple for collecting UDID information without getting user consent first. What does this mean for apps like Tweetbot?

[UDIDs] allowed us to restore push notifications settings after Tweetbot was deleted and re-installed. With this new change in place this is no longer possible, if you delete and re-install Tweetbot you'll have to setup your push notification settings again.

The UDID is 40 characters that are unique to your iPhone and iPad, used most generally by developers to provision pre-release apps through the App Store. Now developers will need to create their own unique ID within the app and store it in iCloud.

Ultimately, it’s good news that Apple is making sure that developers aren’t easily getting a hold on potentially sensitive data like UDIDs; iOS users are a little on edge about privacy after that Path incident.

This might also explain the speed with which Apple went from deprecating the UDID collection to outright rejecting apps. Typically something deprecated in one iOS version will be removed in a later version, giving developers time and an expectation for when they need to have an alternative approach in place. This has led some developers, including Subfurther, to call it a “lousy way to communicate policy change”.

Source: Tapbots, Subfurther

The extremely popular social photo sharing service Instagram now has a very serious competitor to it’s own app — it’s called Gramory. Gramory offers a superb way to browse through Instagram photos. One of the huge features that is not present in Instagram’s official app is the ability to browse by trends.

Gramory has a very nice, multi-panel UI. The left panel is where you’ll be able to choose how to filter the photos that you’re browsing though. You can look through your own photos or feed, the popular photos, photos that you’ve liked, or even see what tags are trending and browse through those images. Regardless of which view you choose, you’ll see them all presented as thumbnails. This is awesome because it lets you see 20 photos at once on a single page so that you can select which ones you’d like to see larger.

When viewing a photo, you’ll see a large version of the photo as well as all the comments that have been made on that photo. If you pull the screen down, you’ll see the hidden icons that let you share the photo to Twitter, Facebook, Messages, or Mail. You can also like the photo or leave a comment. If you tap the little thumbnail icon in the upper righthand corner, a right panel will slide out that displays thumbnails of that user’s Instagram photos.

Despite how awesome Gramory is, it’s still not a replacement for the official Instagram app. It doesn’t allow you to post photos, nor can you see a nice list of recent comments and likes made to your photos.

The Good

• Multi-plane UI
• Browse photos by “me”, popular, feed, liked, or trends
• Search users and tags
• Thumbnail view

The Bad

• Cannot post photos to Instagram
• Cannot view a list of recent comments and likes made to your photos

The Conclusion

If you’re a big Instagram user, you must start using Gramory. It’s offers a new and better way to browse photos posted to Instgram.

Free – Download Now

Brian Cox’s Wonders of the Universe is a gorgeous educational and reference app that takes you on a tour of the universe with Professor Brian Cox — a particle physicist, Royal Society research fellow, and professor at the University of Manchester. You may also know him as the science broadcaster and presenter of the highly popular BBC2 series Wonders of the Solar System.

When you first launch the app, you’re presented with a brief, informative tutorial on how to use the app, then placed in the middle of the universe, out in space. You can pinch and zoom and scroll around to explore different galaxies, planets, stars and nebulas — all of which is stunning to look at and in motion — or you can select where you wish to go from the menu at the top of the screen. The included topics are sub atomic, atomic, Solar System, stars, Milky Way, galaxies, and universe.

When you choose a topic to explore, the chapters will appear in a scrollable menu at the bottom of the screen. As you scroll through the chapters, the screen will zoom into the area of interest. To dive into a chapter, you just drag it up into the middle of the screen. The chapter will not become full width. Instead, it appears as a column in the center of the screen so that you can still see the universe behind it. I really like this — it gives you the sense of floating out in space while reading.

As you scroll through the chapter, you’ll encounter images, infographics, photography, and videos. When you do, the media will automatically resize to full screen so that you can really enjoy it and get engaged. When you’re done viewing the media, just simply continue scrolling and the app will size it back down and smoothly continue on with the chapter.

Brian Cox is the presenter in the videos, and I must say, he’s awesome. Every video I’ve watched has made me feel like I’m watching a TV show on the Discovery Channel. They are so well done that it actually makes me want to watch and learn more. As I read through the chapters and watch the videos, I become more thirsty for knowledge of the universe and Solar System.

When you reach the end of a chapter, just continue to scroll, as if pushing the chapter off the screen, and you’ll jump right back into space so that you can move on to the next chapter.

I’m not sure if I’ve ever been able to confidently say that an app was perfect before, but Brian Cox’s Wonders of the Universe is. It’s perfect.

The Good

• Gorgeous
• 200 interactive articles
• 2.5 hrs worth of video
• Hundreds of infographics, photographs, and images
• Over 50 3D models
• Brian Cox is awesome

The Bad

• None

The Conclusion

Brian Cox’s Wonders of the Universe is literally one of the best iPad apps I’ve ever encountered. It’s a phenomenal educational tool that has the perfect mix of video, images, text, and hands-on interaction.

I rarely comment on the price of an app, but this one should be going for at least $10, so the $6.99 promotional price is quite a steal.

$6.99 – Download Now