Tweetglass, the Twitter client formally known as Quip, is a an iPad Twitter app that focuses on automatically streamlining and condensing your timeline, especially when it comes to conversations. It was recently updated with streaming over wifi, list support, read-later support, performance improvements, and more.

Tweetglass features a very nice dark-themed UI that has a greater emphasis on looks than it does information density. Avatars are displayed very big with speech bubbles containing the tweets. It looks really great, but it does come at the cost of only displaying 4-5 tweets at a time in landscape orientation, six in portrait.

But the extra space between tweets isn't just for looks, it actually serves a very important purpose. For tweets that are part of a conversation, the avatars of the users that have participated in the conversation appear in the space below the tweet. It's an awesome visual cue. When you tap on a tweet that's part of a conversation, the small avatars below the tweet will move below the tweet and display their replies, in order, nested underneath the main tweet.

I absolutely love this approach to Twitter conversations. Many Twitter apps will display the conversations in order, but Tweetglass does it much more elegantly without changing screens. I would love to see Glasshouse apps take this idea a little further and display the replies at various nesting levels. This would make following conversations even easier.

In addition to the traditional tabs that you'll find in any Twitter client, Tweetglass also includes a tab for conversations, one for retweets, and another for photos. The conversation and retweet tabs only show tweets that are part of a conversation or that have been retweeted.

Similarly, the photos tab in Tweetglass only shows tweets that contain photos, but instead of displaying the tweets, it displays a grid of the photos. Tapping on a photo will enlarge it and display its associated tweet below it with options to view the conversation, mark as a favorite, reply, share, or reply. The design of this tab is visually nice, but the scrolling does tend to suffer since the large thumbnails sometimes have difficulty loading fast enough.

The direct messages tab takes a similar visual approach and instead of displaying a list of all the users you have direct messages with, it displays their avatars with little icons that indicate how many messages you have with that user. Because the avatars here are much smaller than the photo thumbnails in the photos tab, scrolling is a lot smoother.

The good

• Beautiful design
• Revolutionary approach to twitter conversations
• Conversations, retweet, and photos tabs
• Photos tab displays grid of photos that have been tweeted
• Direct messages tab shows grid of user avatars
• List support
• Streaming over wifi
• Auto-refresh intervals of 1, 5 or 10min (or manual refresh)
• Support for Instapaper, Pocket, and Readability
• Double-tap Message tap to mark all as read

The bad

• No light theme
• Performance has noticeably improved, but the photos tab is still a bit laggy

The bottom line

I'm a huge fan of Tweetglass and it's unique spin on a Twitter application. It's a fresh approach to a popular genre of apps and I applaud Glasshouse Apps for creating such a beauty. Tweetglass is not meant to be a primary Twitter client, but one that you browse through when you want to sit back and enjoy catching up on conversations, photos, and links from people who interest you.

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Verizon collects a ton of usage and behavioral data on their customers, anonymizes it and then leverages it for marketing and partner programs. If you just signed up with Verizon, say to get a new iPhone 5, you have 30 days to opt-out of the data collection. Bryan J Clark posted about it earlier on app.net:

@benbrooks thought you might like to do a PSA: new Verizon customers like us have 30 days to opt-out from them selling your web history and device location to marketers. They should go to www.vzw.com/myprivacy to fix it.

While Verizon is hardly the only company to engage in customer analytics, because they have access to your cell phone data, they have access to far more, and more personal data than almost any other company. If you're the kind of person who turns off Google web tracking and flips your Facebook privacy settings to maximum, you'll almost certainly want to kill Verizon's snooping as well.

You might also want to drop them and the government oversight organizations of your choice a little letter telling them any such data collection would be better offered as opt-in than hidden as opt-out.

Update: Matthew Panzarino of The Next Web dove into Verizon's privacy options. If you weren't encouraged to turn it all off, all now, read what he found and you will be.

Source: www.vzw.com/myprivacy via Bryan J Clark and Ben Brooks

The iPad mini may debut as a Wi-Fi only device, and the iPad 3 revision iMore revealed back in August may be compatible with International LTE frequencies, just like the iPhone 5. This according to [the Guardian]'s(http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/oct/09/ipad-mini-wifi-uk-4g) Charles Arthur:

Industry sources indicated to the Guardian that they do not expect to see 3G-capable versions of the iPad mini. That would allow Apple to produce it comparatively cheaply and to limit the top price of the product, while retaining mobile broadband connectivity for its pricier iPad line.

Both the original and new 7-inch Kindle Fire and the Nexus 7, the primary competition for the rumored iPad mini, lack a cellular option. Apple has also thus far resisted including cellular connectivity in the iPod touch line. The original iPad was announced with both Wi-Fi and 3G, but the 3G version took an extra month to be released. The suggestion seems to be that Apple would use cellular as a way to push buyers towards the bigger iPad. However, not having cellular on a tablet device, even a mini-sized one, would be incredibly annoying. So, hopefully, at worst we'll be looking at a staggered release like the original iPad, and at best the same old $130 up-sell as the rest of the iPad line.

Given what we've heard about the size of the iPad mini, a cellular version of the device would be vary attractive to those who want something bigger than their phone with them when they're out and about. It would also give Apple's smaller tablet a distinct advantage over competition from Amazon and Google.

The Guardian also repeats rumors iMore has been hearing since August, namely that the iPad 3 will be refreshed at the same time. iMore has already mentioned the Lightning connector, new, cooler internals, and potential LTE chipset update, but the Guardian adds that such an LTE update would also allow the new iPad 3 to work on international LTE frequencies, like Europe. (The current iPad 3 only offers North American LTE.)

Would lack of cellular on an iPad 3 be a deal-breaker for anyone?

Source: The Guardian

If you've cracked the screen on your iPhone 4S and didn't opt for AppleCare+ or insurance through your carrier, you can DIY repair the screen yourself. While it isn't the easiest repair to perform, it's definitely doable with the right parts and tools.

And we'll walk you through it every step of the way.

Disclaimer: As with any repair, neither iMore nor The Pod Drop can be held responsible for any damage you may do to your device. It's also worth considering that opening up your device to perform any repair or modification can and will void your Apple warranty. If you don't feel comfortable opening your device, don't. Use extreme care and caution when performing a repair on any device.

Not comfortable with DIY repair? Leave it to the pros

If you aren't comfortable performing a DIY repair on your own, don't. It is possible to cause more damage or run into issues you aren't ready for. In this case, it's probably better to either pay the money for a replacement device from Apple or use a local or mail-in service that will handle the repair and any issues that may arise for you.

The Pod Drop has many locations in the midwest and is a rapidly growing company. You can check for a Pod Drop location near you, mail it in, or use another third party repair service. For more information on mail-in repairs or possible Pod Drop locations near you, you can visit their website.

• Pod Drop locations and mail-in options

If you are comfortable with repairing your own device, put your ninja pants on and keep reading!

What you'll need to DIY replace a broken iPhone 4S screen

PXLFIX recommends using only quality and genuine parts from a reputable supplier like eTech Parts. They have quality parts, tools, and much more for all your repair needs. You will find links to the specific parts you'll need for this repair in the list below.

• iPhone 4S (any variant)
• Replacement digitizer and LCD assembly - Link to black part, Link to white part
• #00 Phillips screwdriver - Link to part
• Security screwdriver - Link to part
• Spudger tool - Link to part
• Metal spudger set (optional but recommended) - Link to part
• SIM removal tool or paperclip

Video walkthrough

While the video walkthrough is pretty detailed, we still recommend using it in correlation with the written steps below.

Power off your iPhone 4S

Before performing any repair you should always power off your device before opening it up.

Remove the back plate

1. Using your security screwdriver, remove the 2 screws on either side of the dock connector port.

2. Set them aside. They are both the exact same size and length so it does not matter if you mix them up. They are interchangeable.
3. Gently slide up the back plate by applying a bit of pressure along the bottom with your thumbs and sliding upwards.

4. Now lift off the back plate and set it aside.

Remove the battery and grounding clip

1. Using your #00 Phillips screwdriver, remove the two screws holding the battery in place.

2. These screws are different lengths so make sure you remember which one goes where. The one that is slightly larger is the bottom screw.
3. There is a tiny grounding clip underneath the battery clip where the first screw is located. Use your spudger tool or finger to remove it before prying the clip up. Many times it can go flying if you don't remove it first and then you'll have difficulty locating it so it's best to remove it first.

4. Now use your spudger tool and at the bottom of the battery clip, gently pry upwards so the clip pops up.

5. Move to the edge of the iPhone where the volume buttons are located and use your spudger tool to carefully pry up the battery. It is stuck down with a good amount of adhesive so be careful when prying upwards that you don't bend the battery. This is why I do not use the plastic tab that is provided. It typically rips or bends the battery. If one part is resistant move your pry tool a little further down and gently start prying it up in different places taking care not to come too close to the volume button cables towards the top.

6. Once you've gotten the battery pulled out of the iPhone 4S we can move on to inserting the replacement battery.

Remove the top logic board shields

1. Using your #00 Phillips screwdriver, remove the four screws that hold the top silver shield in place and the one screw that holds the small black shield in place.

2. Now use your spudger or pry tool to gently lift the silver shield out of the iPhone.

3. Use your spudger or pry tool to lift the black shield out of the iPhone.

4. Set both shields aside and make sure your screws are organized for reassembly later.

Unclip the top logic board cables & remove the rear-facing camera

Using your spudger or pry tool carefully disconnect all the cables at the top of the logic board. There are seven cables total. One of the cables lies underneath the bottom most cable so you'll need to disconnect the cable over it before folding it back and revealing the shorter cable underneath.

Once you unclip the seven cables, you can lift the rear-facing camera directly out of the iPhone. It was only connected by one cable.

Disconnect the dock connector

1. Using your #00 Phillips screwdriver remove the shield that is covering the dock connector cable towards the middle left of the iPhone. Remember which screw came from where as they are different sizes. Gently lift the shield out of the iPhone and set it aside.

2. Take your spudger tool and gently pry up the dock connector cable and peel it back as shown below. Perform this step with caution as there is adhesive on the underside of the cable. Take care not to rip the cable by pulling up to quickly.

3. Leave the cable in this position and move on to the next section.

Pry up the Wi-Fi antenna

1. Using your spudger toolcarefully pry up the round connection for the cellular antenna. It should come up easily so pry up gently.

2. You'll notice that it is wrapped around a metal clip. Gently unwrap it so it's sticking upwards and leave it in this position.

Remove the SIM card and tray

Using a SIM removal tool or a bent paper clip, eject the SIM tray and set it, and the SIM card aside.

Remove the logic board

1. Remove the three #00 Phillips screws at the top, middle, and bottom left of the logic board with your #00 Phillips screwdriver. The top screw has a piece of tape over it you'll need to peel back. After removing it you'll also notice a gold grounding clip underneath it. Make sure you don't lose it as you'll need it for reassembly.

2. There are two more screws holding the logic board in place and you'll need to remove them with your flat head screwdriver. They are located at the top right and bottom of the logic board.
3. Now you should be able to lift the logic board out of the iPhone. Use the area that the rear-facing camera was located and the bottom of the logic board to lift it straight out.

Remove the loud speaker assembly

1. The loud speaker is held in with two screws that are located on both sides of the assembly. Use your #00 Phillips screwdriver to remove them.

2. The screw on the left hand side of the assembly has a black triangular spacer underneath it. Make sure you don't lose it and set it aside for reassembly.

3. After the two screws are removed you can gently lift the speaker assembly out of the iPhone.

Remove the vibrator assembly

The vibrator assembly is only held down with a bit of adhesive. Use your pry tool or metal spatula tool in order to loosen the adhesive and remove the vibrator assembly. Just make sure you are careful not to bend it.

Remove the digitizer and LCD assembly

For this section, we highly recommend watching the teardown video above as it will show you the technique for removing the display that will best compliment the written steps much better than pictures can.

1. Hold the iPhone so the screen is facing you and insert your pry tool or metal spatula into the top left corner and slowly start breaking the adhesive underneath the display by moving your tool gently back and forth.
2. Once the top left is free, move over to the top right corner and repeat.
3. After the top of the assembly is free, move towards the bottom on either side of the Home button and repeat the same process.
4. Once all the adhesive is broken, carefully pull the front assembly off the iPhone taking care to make sure the digitizer and LCD cables don't get caught up in the frame.

Transfer the Home button, speaker mesh, & camera hold to the new digitizer & LCD assembly

If the assembly you ordered did not come with a Home button, camera hold, or speaker assembly already attached, you'll need to remove those pieces and place them onto the new assembly.

The Home button is only held on with a rubber gasket with a bit of adhesive. Carefully pry it up and transfer it. The camera hold and speaker mesh are the same and can easily be transferred as well. Use a bit of double sided adhesive if you need to.

Reassemble your iPhone 4S

To reassemble your iPhone 4S, you can either follow all these directions in exact reverse order or view our reassembly video guide above which will walk you through how to reassemble it from screen to turning it back on and testing it.

And ...done!

Now that you've completely reassembled your iPhone 4S you can go ahead and hold down the power button in order to turn it back on. After it boots up, test the new assembly by dialing some numbers, using the keyboard, and looking for dead pixels. Then place a test call, check vibrator functionality, and do an all around test to make sure all of the components you had to remove and replace are in good working order.

If everything is back in working order, pat yourself on the back. This isn't an easy repair to perform and if you were successful, you've now unlocked the ninja DIY'er achievement!

Want to know how to perform another type of iPhone repair or modification? Send me suggestions to ally@imore.com.

For questions or to inquire about mail-in repairs through The Pod Drop, you can follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook or e-mail us directly!

Additional resources:

• How to replace the battery in an iPhone 4S
• How to replace the rear-facing camera in an iPhone 4S
• Even more DIY guides and repair walkthroughs

The newest McDonald's in Virginia Beach, Va., has mounted iPads to their tables so customers can enjoy some magical and revolutionary fun while they feast on fast food. Hugh Fard, the owner of the Viriginia Beach establishment, came by the idea from a French company that has implemented a similar feature in 20 of their own locations across Europe. While some content is blocked, such as YouTube, the The Virginian-Pilot says customers seem to love it:

Ricky Pritchard and his wife regularly visited McDonald's on South Lynnhaven Road near the Interstate 264 exit, a location Fard also owns. They didn't know the new restaurant, about a mile away, had the iPads until they stopped there for breakfast last week.

"I love it," said Pritchard, 49, after he and his wife finished their steak bagels. "I've been sitting here a little too long."

He and his wife, Victoria, called up Facebook while eating. She said the iPad at McDonald's made it easier for them to use together than at home, where it's not always comfortable to share the screen.

"It's going to keep people here longer," Victoria Pritchard said. "I can imagine us coming here all the time."

It's a bid by Fard to keep McDonald's relevant in the face of increasing competition from other chains such as Starbucks and Panera, which are often seen as more modern and trendy establishments. While McDonald's has no immediate plans to take the program company-wide, they are watching the Virginia Beach location closely, and may decide to on their own implementation after six to eight months. Whether this will attract a similar mobile worker crowd as Starbucks only time will tell.

Are you a McDonald's customer, and do you like the sound of this program? What other establishments would you like to see iPads in? Let us know below in the comments.

Source: The Virginian-Pilot, via: CNET

If everything we've heard to date holds true, Apple will be announcing the iPad mini sometime this month. But while Apple has yet to so much as schedule an event, manufacturers are already racing to get iPad mini accessories ready to launch alongside it. Now Macotakara reports some of them may have raced too hastily.

Large OEM mobile accessory maker has stopped their iPad mini case production, because the form of iPad mini seems to be changed.

Accessory makers require a high level precision, down to 0.2mm of tolerance to make form-fitting cases. So if there's even a minor change it could require new molds and new manufacturing runs. Which is part of the danger when you try to leap to market based on parts and leaks for otherwise not-yet-existing products.

Since Apple won't be changing the iPad mini case from a rounded rectangle to a triangle or pentagram anytime soon, however, there likely hasn't been any sort of change that will matter to consumers. Nor would a consumer ever be aware of one anyway.

As to larger manufacturing issues, those rumors are passed around literally every time Apple has a new product release on the horizon. That makes it difficult to sort the real from the really fake. Because Apple seldom pre-announces products or product features months in advance, however, if there ever is a problem or a showstopper, it can be factored internally and timelines can be adjusted accordingly. Then events can be announced, press releases dropped, and products launched.

Until then, it's interesting inside baseball chatter to be sure, and part of the grand pre-release rumor roller-coaster to be certain, but it's not anything to worry about beyond that. Unless they decide to make it horseshoe shaped...

Source: Macotakara

A couple of months ago we decided to relaunch iMore's Sunday show, but with a decidedly different twist. Instead of artificially dividing up Apple's increasingly interconnected, if cyclical, product lines into separate shows, or merely doubling up on the Wednesday iMore show format, we wanted to try something more audacious. We wanted to invite on some of the best and brightest minds in tech media and analysis and go deeper than the headlines. We wanted to explore Apple and its competitors, and the way media treats (and sometimes mistreats) them. We wanted to delve into strategies, challenge perceptions, and try to provide nuance, context, and perspective beyond what a sound bite or pull quote allows. And, based on our guests so far, I think we've gotten off to a great start.

If you haven't listened or watched already, I invite you to try it out:

• iMore Special Edition 5: One year later with Ryan Block
• iMore Special Edition 4: Apple, Google, and Maps with MG Siegler
• iMore Special Edition 3: Smartly compromised with Guy English
• iMore Special Edition 2: Storytelling with Clayton Morris
• iMore Special Edition 1: Maple beaded bandits with Jim Dalrymple

If you enjoy the iMore Special Edition, please take a moment to subscribe to our new, dedicated feeds, and if you use iTunes, to leave a review and a rating. Launching (or relaunching) a new show is a lot of work, and your reviews and ratings are a huge help.

• Subscribe via iTunes: Audio | Video
• Subscribe via RSS: Audio | Video

If you've done all of the above, we really appreciate it. Let us know what you think, what guests you'd like to see in the future, and what topics you'd like us to tackle. Nothing Apple or media related is off the table, so let's raise the bar and pants some quarterbacks.

Apple decided not to make a dock for the iPhone 5, leaving that potential market wide open to third party accessory makers. iPhone5mod is hoping to fill that particular void with the Flash Lightning Dock for iPhone 5. Not only does it include an Apple-like white dock, but an optional Lightning cable that actually glows.

The iPhone 5 Flash Lightning Dock comes in 2 parts. A classic dock for iPhone 5 and an illuminated Lightning Cable. Charge and sync your iPhone 5 with the iPhone 5 Dock. Your iPhone sits upright in the dock as it syncs or charges, so it's perfect for a desk or countertop. It comes included with a specially made Lightning Cable that has an intelligent power managements system built in. You can actually see the flow of current going into your iPhone 5.

You can check out the video above, and if you like what you see, head on over to the website below for ordering info.

Source: iPhone5mod

Due to some unfortunate legal drama, the highly conversational Twitter app formerly known as Quip is now known as Tweetglass, and it's been given a 1.1 update and some new features to go along with the new name.

• View your Twitter Lists
• Streaming (over wifi, when auto-refresh is on in Settings)
• Auto-refresh intervals of 1, 5 or 10min (or manual refresh)
• A new 'Who's tweeting' notification UI which lets you see who is posting new tweets without having to change your position in the timeline
• Read Later services (Instapaper, Pocket and Readability) via long-tapping links, which also includes Copy link, Open link and Open in Safari options
• Localizations for French, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese
• Better timeline scrolling performance
• Native Twitter pics are larger and show more detail
• Double-tap the Messages icon to mark all as read
• New animation when expanding and collapsing conversations
• When set to auto-refresh (which changes to streaming when there is a wifi network), new tweets appear above if you're partway through your timeline, but if you're at the very top, they push everything else down so you can keep it open at your desk and go hands-free
• UI tweaks & bug fixes
• Please also note that the app's Twitter account has changed from @getquip to @tweetglassapp.

I use Tweetglass the way I used to use personal RSS -- to sit down with, coffee in hand, and just read interesting conversations and enjoy interesting pictures and links from the people that interest me. It's not my on-the-go, get-things done Twitter client, it's my leave-me-alone-for-a-few-minutes, just-relax Twitter client. And priced at just $0.99, it's an incredible value. (It's plastered and painted by Glasshouse apps, how could it not be?)

Tweetglass is also one of those niche apps, like Birdhouse and Reportage before it, that really show the value of Twitter when great developers are allowed to create great new approaches to the service. Unfortunately, Twitter seems intent on quadrant-ing and token-ing just these kinds of apps to death, so please join me in bugging @glasshouseapps to get Netglass up and running as fast as possible...

$0.99 - Download now

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Introduced at the iPhone 5 event last month but not scheduled for released until October, Apple has just begun sending out shipping notifications for new iPod touch and iPod nano orders. Many of our readers, and yours truly, received texts and emails this morning with the details. Mine are set to arrive in here in Canada in just under a week, on Oct. 15.

The new iPod touch has the same amazing 4-inch, 16:9 in-cell display as the iPhone 5, along with an even thinner design and a new Loop wrist strap I'm really going to have try before extolling or condemning. The new iPod nano drops the previous, watch-friendly shape for a Nokia-style rectangle with a power button and rounded Home screen icons.

If you received your new iPod touch or iPod nano shipping notification, let us know when it's scheduled to arrive, or jump into out iPod touch 5 Forum and track along with us.

We love podcasts here at iMore -- you can tell by how many we make! -- and we're curious how you're listening to them on your iPhone, iPod, and iPad these days? Since Apple has released their own Podcasts app has that become your default? Do you prefer to use a third party app like Pocket Casts, Downcast, Instacast, or iCatcher? Do you use something else entirely? Or do you not listen to podcasts at all?

As always, give me your vote in the poll up top and tell me what makes your go-to podcast app your go to podcast app in the comments below!

App.net (ADN), an alternative to Twitter that seeks to better balance the needs of the platform owners with developers and users, saw substantial growth in the last couple of weeks. This is partly due to the arrival of popular clients -- for end users the interface is the app, after all, and familiarity is a huge feature. In addition to attracting attention, these clients reduced the learning curve and the stress level often associated with platform change. ADN also lowered the cost of their service. Initially ADN cost $50 a year for a non-developer account, which was a substantial barrier to entry for anyone but the geekiest of geek users (#227, at your service). While $50 is less than some people spend on fancy caffeinated beverages each month, it still feels like a big up-front expense for something that may or may not provide a significant return. ADN dropped the yearly price to $36, but what's more, they introduced a new $5 monthly option. $5 a month is actually $60 a year, which is more expensive than it was previously, but far more people will be willing to give ADN a chance at $5 than $50, as any substantial period of time beyond a few days blurs towards the amorphous. It's a lower up-front cost, and hence, lower up-front risk.

It's objection handling at the product level, and it's smart business. It's something Apple has been doing going on a decade, and something they're doing especially well with iOS devices right now.

With the iPhone 3G in 2008, Apple dropped the price of the iPhone to $199 on contract. Sure, when you included the typical U.S. 2-year contract, the actual price difference wasn't extreme, but the up-front cost is what mattered. That's why, when the iPhone 3GS was introduced, Apple kept the iPhone 3G around and dropped it to $99, and it's why when the iPhone 4S was introduced, Apple kept the iPhone 3GS around and eventually dropped it to $0 on contract. At "free", the barrier of entry was essentially nothing, and the potential for up-selling to a non-free alternative was tremendous.

Barriers of entry aren't always cost-based either. Windows Phone faces entirely different barriers to entry. First, carriers have to sell iPhone because it's what people want to buy. Carriers want to sell Android because it's what they can do anything they want with. Windows Phone lacks both consumer demand and carrier friendliness. It also has terrible branding. Microsoft's obsession with the "Windows-everywhere" concept has prevented them from presenting their next-generation mobile offerings with anything but old generation trappings. Microsoft is attempting to change the former, the demand, by marketing themselves as a middle ground to consumers, a better experience than Android that doesn't come from Apple. They're also making exclusivity deals with carriers, and offering themselves as a way to hedge against the dominance of either Apple or Google. When it comes to the latter, the branding, they remain oblivious, so partners like Nokia are trying to promote their own brands, like Lumia, above Windows Phone (which likely doesn't make Microsoft happy). Unfortunately, neither Microsoft nor their partners have been able to lower either barrier enough to gain momentum and establish themselves as a serious player in the space. At least not yet.

Microsoft faced somewhat similar barriers to entry when they tried, for a decade, to popularize the idea of Tablet PCs. They didn't face competition from better positioned rivals, but they faced the same obsession with Windows everywhere that created a horrible user experience, and they lacked any clear consumer story or go-to-market strategy, crippling them from the start.

When Apple introduced the iPad, they removed the PC software barrier by using mobile software, namely iOS, and they made an attempt to position it for consumers between the smartphone and the laptop, targeting very specific use cases. That led to Apple achieving huge success and establishing a profitable market. However, the iPad still presented two significant barriers of entry all its own. Firstly, at 9.7-inches it's just too big and two heavy for some users, and second, starting at $500 is still too expensive for others.

Amazon tried to take advantage of this apparent opening with the Kindle Fire, which they initially made smaller at 7-inch and sold cheaply, at $200, hoping content would generate revenue lost to lower (read: almost no) hardware margins. Amazon has since followed the original Kindle Fire up with two new, HD versions, one at the same 7-inch size and the other at a larger, almost 9-inch size. Both are still cheap, and both are still meant to be subsidized by content sales. But by removing one barrier, Amazon has created another. Their business model won't allow them to sell the Kindle Fire in markets that don't also support content sales. While Apple's iTunes has a large international footprint, Amazon's store absolutely does not. In addition, Apple's hardware-centric model allows them to seed markets with product where no iTunes Store yet exists. Amazon literally can't afford to do that, severely limiting their addressable market and hamstringing them from the get go.

Google tried something similar with the Nexus 7, although seemingly without the desire to recoup the costs of cheap hardware with content sales. That allowed them to sell into countries Amazon couldn't. However, Google's lack of international content offerings still hurt them in terms of the overall value proposition of their platform. Likewise, their lack of real tablet-class software, and the continued uneven usability of the Android operating system hurt them in terms of the overall experience of their platform. Even people who want an Apple alternative aren't always willing to put up with those two compromises in order to have it.

Apple faces a much easier path to lowering the barriers to entry for the iPad. They just have to make it smaller and lighter, and sell it for less. They've demonstrated time and again that they have both the design and engineering skills to accomplish this, and they've shown with the iPod mini (vs. the original iPod) and the iPad itself (vs. the Mac) that they're willing to cannibalize their own higher end sales if it means they push mass-market adoption of their platforms and prevent competitors from beating them too it.

A smaller, lighter, cheaper iPad mini, sold in almost 100 countries, backed by the content of the iTunes Store, and enveloped by the user experience of iOS solves the barrier to entry problems of the 9.7-inch iPad in a way no competitor can currently match.

Just like the iPod touch removed the "I don't want a phone or contract" barriers, and succeeding generations of iOS have removed the "I need apps and multitasking" barriers, and the iPhone 5 removed the "I need a bigger screen and LTE phone" barriers, Apple has so far resisted the temptation to mistake their product for their business, and, in highly strategic ways, has kept chipping away at the barriers to entry for their products.

If there's a story to the last 5, if not 10 years of Apple, that's it -- removing barriers to entry by making products better and more accessible so they're ultimately more appealing to more people. And the next 5, if not 10, probably won't be much different.

Not long after the iPhone 5 was released, reports of a purple flare produced by the camera started sprouting up all over the internet. Matthew Panzarino from The Next Web quickly responded to these outcries of "purplegate" by explaining that this flaw wasn't unique to the iPhone 5, but is present on the iPhone 4S and can even occur when using high-end DSLR cameras and lens. This weekend, Apple issued a support article claiming that this symptom is normal for small digital cameras and explained how to reduce the likelihood of it occurring.

If this purple haze is so normal, then what exactly is it? As Panzarino pointed out, it's a chromatic aberration called "purple fringing". The above photo is his example of both the iPhone 4S and iPhone 5 producing purple flare.

[Purple fringing] can be related to a variety of things including stray infrared light, stray UV light, anti-reflective lens coatings, image processing or bloom from overexposure. These effects are exacerbated in very bright light and with lens flare.

The photography experts over at Digital Photography Review reached a similar conclusion as demonstrated in the image above.

The most likely cause of the iPhone 5's purple haze is probably lens flare and internal reflections in the camera lens assembly. All lenses are succeptable to lens flare to some degree, and as you can see from the images at the top of this page, the iPhone 4S isn't immune either (ditto the iPhone 4 and competitive smartphones from other manufacturers).

When I first heard about purple fringing with the iPhone 5, I was a little bothered because I had never experienced it with my iPhone 4S. Except it turns out that I did experience it, I just never noticed because I wasn't looking for it. I found these two photos I took on my iPhone 4S, last year.

I also decided to see if I my Nikon D800 and Sigma 50mm f/1.4 lens were susceptible to purple fringing. With very little effort, I got this photo.

So once again, all this hype over "purplegate" has been blown way out of proportion. As it turns out, Apple was actually being modest when they said that "most small cameras" may exhibit this flare as even very expensive digital cameras are susceptible to the flaw.

So how do you avoid it? First and foremost, avoid pointing the camera towards a bright light source to eliminate flare altogether. You can also use your hand to shield the source from directly hitting your lens. Professional cameras actually come with lens hoods that work similar to using your hand, because, again, all cameras will produce flare. Some iPhone cases may also work as a small lens hood since they create a ridge all the way around the lens. If you want lens flare, just not purple flare, try altering the angle at which the light hits the lens.

Or, if you're like me, embrace the purple flare and create photos that make it look like there's an alien invasion.

• Ultimate guide to iPhone photography
• iPhone photography forum

Patents, the weaponizing of patents in particular, and the weaponizing of patents by Apple in particular is the latest in the the New York Times' curious iEconomy series. This, the 7th installment, is penned by Charles Duhigg and Steve Lohr, and once again, rather than explore the real problems with patent litigation, the Times instead chooses focus on Apple and its lawsuits against Android partners. They once again focus on Apple to the detriment of the real, pervasive problem.

Here's the whiplash inducing pivot, where the Times transitions from a story about a smaller developer sued by a larger company into Apple's various lawsuits:

Vlingo was a tiny upstart on this battlefield, but as recent litigation involving Apple and Samsung shows, technology giants have also waged wars among themselves.

Billion-dollar companies sue each other all of the time, and Apple's lawsuits don't really showcase the larger problems of patent litigation. Apple will survive. Samsung will survive. They'll continue to make computers and phones, refrigerators and televisions, and life will go on. Google will continue making money from ads, no matter the platform. No, the real issues with patent litigation are highlighted by the story of Vlingo. Vlingo was a company specializing in speech recognition software. In 2008, they were threatened with lawsuits unless they sold to Nuance, a much larger company in the same field. When a small company is sued by a much larger one, even when the smaller company is in the right, it can be devastating.

When the first lawsuit went to trial last year, Mr. Phillips won. In the companies' only courtroom face-off, a jury ruled that Mr. Phillips had not infringed on a broad voice recognition patent owned by Mr. Ricci's company.

But it was too late. The suit had cost $3 million, and the financial damage was done. In December, Mr. Phillips agreed to sell his company to Mr. Ricci.

Vlingo won the case, but because of the legal expense, they had to sell to Nuance anyway. This is the danger, that the cost of defending yourself is so high that it isn't worth it, regardless of whether or not you are in the right. The experience was so disheartening that Michael Phillips, co-founder and former CTO of Vlingo, left the voice recognition field altogether after selling his company to Nuance.

So why does this matter? Why should we care about the smaller companies, like Vlingo? Why not go for the big sexy Apple headline and leave it at that? Because nothing starts big. Apple didn't. Google didn't. The real innovations start small. It's here that the Times missed an opportunity. While this story does cap the Times article, it's used mainly as a springboard to talk about Apple's legal issues with other large companies. Instead of spending page after page talking about the big players, they could have shone a light on the real threats to innovation within our patent system, the larger players picking off the smaller ones. The patent trolls like Lodsys targeting indie app developers. That is what will stifle the next iPhone, that next great innovation that changes how we think about and interact with technology, and keep it from the light of day for a long, long time.

Make Apple the headline. They get a lot of attention and they generate a lot of views. But don't make them the whole story. If you're going to write about patents of mass destruction, the big, predictable, super-power players that trade fractions of their billions all the time are, for lack of a better term, boring. It's the rogue entities, the ones that kill small companies, that are interesting and that will ultimately shape the future of technology.

And the Times' obsession with Apple is once again preventing them from telling it.

Source: The New York Times

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For some, the big, beautiful iPhone 5 screen just begs to be stared at. For others, it's a scratch-field waiting to happen. If you experience scratch paranoia, one of the first things you'll want for is an iPhone 5 screen protector.

The Ultra Crytal and Ultra Oleophobic are the latest from SPIGEN SGP's new iPhone 5 Screen Protector Steinheil Series. Steinheil is billed as an enhanced, ultra-hard optical coating and SPG claims these screen protectors are 25% thicker than previous models, with no rainbow effect, and no interference with either the capacitive multitouch sensors or the clarity of the new, spectacular in-cell display.

The Ultra Crystal hits especially hard on the clarity claim, and uses a high-grade, clear coated film. The Ultra Oleophobic offers the same kind of oil-resistent coating as the iPhone screen itself, better repelling fingerprints and smudges.

Both come with a hard squeegee to aid in application, and a micro-fiber fabric to clean your iPhone surface. SPG even goes so far as to provide dust-removing stickers to help make sure not a single particle gets coat between the Ultra Crystal or Ultra Oleophobic and your iPhone 5.

Applying the Ultra Crystal or Ultra Oleophobic is easy but takes patience and a steady hand if you want to get everything lined up perfectly, and make sure no dust or debris gets stuck under the film. It's a dry application, meaning you don't need any water or liquid, but you do need to work your way from one end to the other, squeegeeing firmly. Line up twice, apply once remains my advice.

Even though these are hard-style films, once applied the difference is minimal, and it's hard to see any loss of screen brightness or feel any loss of sensitivity, though styluses may have slightly more trouble than fingers.

If neither the Ultra Crystal or Ultra Oleophobic do it for you, SPG's iPhone 5 Screen Protector Steinheil Series also includes the Ultra Fine which is slightly textured for 30% more light transmittance, and the Ultra Optics which offers a microlens array surface layer to give you the best of all possible worlds.

If you're looking for an iPhone 5 screen protector, and you want something different, give SGP's Steinheil Series a glance.

$13.99 an up - Buy now

SEGA has announced that they're bringing their classic video game Crazy Taxi to the iPhone and iPad later this month. If you're unfamiliar with the game, Crazy Taxi is racing game where you must barrel through traffic packed streets, hurdle off parking garages, and perform other crazy stunts score up the most fares.

You wanna get nuts? On the go?

Let's get nuts –on the go!

The most madcap of cab games is coming to iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. When? Whenever the cab gets here — which will be soon! Stay tuned for more!

To see the shortest promo video in the history of promo videos, check out the video above. Any Crazy Taxi fans excited about this one?

Source: SEGA