MacinTech Users' Group

I've been attending a lot of meetings with various London-based startups in the last few months to learn their stories on what it takes to launch a successful new product. I'm particularly interested in ones that have a heavy slant towards mobile -- and iOS. This interest is magnified when I find a startup that is making a product that truly makes my life easier. One such startup is OnTrees and I think the process of bringing their idea to market is one other iOS developers can learn from.

OnTrees wants to be the Mint.com of the UK.

Financial data aggregation can be big business. Just ask Aaron Patzer who sold his Mint.com startup to Intuit in 2009 for $170 million. And while the Intuit deal did lend an air of legitimacy to financial aggregation services in the United States, in other parts of the world -- particularly the United Kingdom -- financial data aggregation services are still looked upon with apprehension. After all, who wants to give their sensitive financial account usernames and passwords to some faceless entity out on the interwebs?

But that's just what UK startup OnTrees is trying to achieve -- and they're doing it on iOS-only for now. It wants to create a one-stop offering that allows users to get a complete financial overview of all their accounts. One login; all your data and spending tracked and graphed. And though generating awareness of what financial aggregation and building trust around it is one challenge, there are others: namely security, bank participation, and making a UX good enough so people will want to spend time with your service. And though OnTrees is still in beta, the company had made great progress in the six months since it had its soft launch in November 2012. Here's what OnTrees founder and Managing Director Charlie Mortimer told me about the experience so far.

Fill a void.

"More than 20 million people in the UK use online banking, of which around 50% have accounts with multiple providers," Mortimer tells me. "Our proprietary research has shown that people using online banking want to keep track of their finances, but the methods they use are typically time-consuming: 32% rely on keeping receipts and cross checking with statements, 20% use Microsoft Excel to keep budgets, 14% keep written notes and 4% use a software package e.g. the now defunct Microsoft Money."

The above could be said to be boring product marketing statics, but they illustrate a point every developer should keep in mind: your product needs to fill a void or why will anyone use it?

And it's that void -- potentially fillable by 20 million UK online bankers -- that makes OnTrees so attractive. After all, financial aggregation giant Mint isn't in the UK. And while there have been other UK financial aggregation services, none have seemed to have caught on even though Mortimer recognizes the need for aggregation to allow people to see their complete financial picture.

But what about just using your bank's web services?

"It's great that some banks (most notably Lloyds) are launching their own 'money managers' that try to help people see what they are spending," Mortimer says. "However, OnTrees' offering is unique because it is 'provider agnostic' and enables users to see their spending across their Lloyds account as well as their Halifax, Barclaycard, and Amex accounts."

And matter of fact, OnTrees works with over 200 financial institutions in the UK, some of which don't even have dedicated apps -- another void increasingly tech savvy, smartphone using consumers are itching to have filled. "For people with these accounts," Mortimer tells me, "OnTrees provides a way of seeing transactions and spending on the move."

Build partnerships.

But surely if OnTrees works with over 200 financial institutions (and counting) it must be a development nightmare -- especially when OnTrees web services and iOS app are only coded by six developers, which seems like something of a skeleton crew for a company that has a goal of providing users with easy-to-understand financial data of all their accounts.

But that's where Mortimer tells me choosing good partnerships is critical.

From day one, OnTrees choose a number of partners carefully. And not just technology partners. Before it's soft launch in November, the company ran a closed beta with users of Mumsnet and the National Union of Students to work out what features were wanted. And make no mistake about it, these were not just "testers." OnTrees thought of them as partners to get valuable feedback from in designing their services.

Mumsnet is a popular UK parenting site (and as any parent knows, tracking finances are always a priority) and the NUS gave OnTrees access to another important group of people -- younger ones who like checking their financial situation from the comfort of their smartphone. The circle of feedback from these partner helped guide OnTrees on its path.

"We've maintained this focus on our users since beta and have recruited a panel of 'SuperUsers' who provide us with really helpful feedback about the site and app which is proving really useful. By doing this, we think we stand a better chance of creating a product that is as useful as possible and truly satisfies consumer demand," Mortimer says.

But partnering presents challenges of its own. "We use quite a broad range of different services, so we do have a challenge in 'knitting' them all together. For example, we use plug-ins for some of our charts, we let users sign in with Facebook and Gmail, and, in bringing this together on the Microsoft Azure platform, we use a range of their off the shelf solutions. Integrating this range of services into a smooth process for users can be a challenge, but this approach does allow us to leverage 'best in class' modules."

And of course there is that small matter of interfacing with over 200 financial institution in the UK. For a team of only six developers, a challenge like that might seem almost insurmountable. But again, this is where partnering matters.

"When we first decided to build a personal finance manager we thought that aggregating from dozens of banks would be a real challenge and would require a significant amount of development work," Mortimer tells me. "That's when we found out more about Yodlee and learnt that they could take care of a lot of these issues, and that, as the leaders in this type of technology, may be able to offer a better service. By using Yodlee to take away these headaches, we are able to concentrate on building the consumer proposition and taking that out to users."

Yodlee is a company that most consumers have probably never heard of, but one of whose services they probably use regularly without ever knowing. The company offers scalable personal financial management solutions for banks and companies, which allows them to work with user's existing financial data. Before Mint was acquire by Intuit in 2009, Yodlee powered its entire backend.

"Yodlee interfaces with the banks and allows us to offer a truly global service. This is quite important in the UK, where a relatively large number of people have accounts in different countries. Yodlee have built 'data agents' which connect to each of the banks' websites and provide us with a user's recent transactions as an xml feed once they have added an account," explains Mortimer. "As the data we get from Yodlee is in a simple (xml) format, it is a good starting point for us to build up data for our users. They also provide a 'best guess' at the categories a user's transactions fall into (e.g. Tesco - groceries) which is useful, but definitely needs improving. The Yodlee system 'learns' over time as more and more users re-categorize their transactions, so this will improve the accuracy."

But even though Yodlee allows OnTrees to offload a majority of the backend work, that doesn't mean relying on partners is all smooth-sailing.

"There are challenges involved, as we have to develop on top of a framework and APIs that they have developed, which are not always ideal for us," Mortimer admits. "As a new brand, it can be hard for us to push for new features which we would like them to offer. However, the pros definitely outweigh the cons, as their platform allows us to offer aggregation of 14,000+ accounts around the world, and focus on how OnTrees can actually help people manage their money."

Choose your platforms.

Creating dual-solution web/app platform is time consuming -- especially for a startup when financial considerations bear more heavily on what you can get accomplished in a set about of time. With that in mind, I asked Mortimer why OnTrees decided to launch with an app and a web service?

"We were keen to do both web and mobile because we think that people use different devices in different ways," Mortimer explains. "Users want to 'manage their money' via the web (e.g. set budgets, open new savings accounts, analyze their spending over time), but they also want to quickly see how much they have in their account, or what they spent last night via the app."

Thus a dual-solution was necessary. And the data that have on their user's usage patterns prove it: one-third of their users are only using mobile, one-third are only using the web, and one-third use both.

"From a development perspective, it's actually probably helped us to launch with a dual-solution, as it has ensured that we separate out our service layer from our web / app layer. This probably meant it took us longer to get everything ready, but means that we're in a better place for launching new versions, as we have a very distinct 'service' layer in our architecture."

As for mobile, OnTrees initially choose only to support iOS upon its soft launch last year. Mortimer explains why: "We actually started building for both Android and iPhone, but realized that as we only have a small team, we could only really support one format. We chose iPhone as it has the largest number of users on a single device." However, Android users can expect a native app in the near future.

Build trust in your product.

Though OnTress is technically out of beta, the company is still working on refining the service so its hard launch won't be for another several months (though new users can start using the service today). One it's developmental journey the company seems to have successfully used partnerships and good-ol-fashioned developer know-how to bring together a pretty slick service. But one last major hurdle is left to be overcome: convincing a critical mass of users that their financial data is safe with OnTrees.

Indeed, Mortimer admits that dealing with users' highly sensitive customer data was the most challenging part of launching OnTrees. "Our main priority when developing OnTrees has always been security. Throughout the development process, we have had to make sure that everything we do adheres to the highest levels of security. Whilst necessary, this has slowed down development, which can be frustrating at times as there are lots of new features we want to add, and it also increases the amount of testing we have to do."

Part of that security involves Yodlee's security protocols (which, because of their time in the business, are virtually as strong as you can get -- a benefit from choosing the right partner), while other security involved externally-validated processes that are certified by TigerScheme.

Having used their service with my own personal accounts for over a month now makes me believe they achieved their security goals. But I'm used to financial aggregation sites (I use Mint for my US accounts) and I've had a lot more contact with OnTrees about their security than most customers ever will. So how does the company go about proving to potential users that their data will be safe?

Mortimer says that delivering a high level of customer service is key. "We have our number on the site so anyone can call and speak to us, we can explain more about what we do, and that we're a UK based site. We're also keen to make sure we get back to people really quickly whether they call, email, tweet, or Facebook message us, and try to resolve any issues or answer any questions they have."

Another method OnTrees uses -- that's already a staple of most developer's relations -- is promoting the product to influential and well-respected journalists, bloggers, and media outlets. Independent scrutiny is key here. Another method OnTrees uses, which goes back to choosing the right partners, is that they work with already-trusted financial sites, like ThisIsMoney.co.uk who are one of the UK's leading personal finance sites with 4 million visitors per month. OnTrees uses their content and product tables to ensure that we have high quality, independent news content on the site.

"In short, we believe that if we work to the highest levels of security, are very transparent in what we do, and try to convey that message, then we will build trust and credibility."

Building a financial empire.

Will OnTrees become the next Mint? Time will tell. But they certainly seem to be doing everything right from a developer's perspective: they've recognized a void that needs to be filled, sought out the right partners, chose their platforms, and are working to build user trust. But Mortimer says there's one more piece to the puzzle: a good UX.

"Another challenge we face is in making users' data fun and easy to understand. How do you turn rows of financial transactions into something that helps users manage their money better? We're currently looking at lots of different ways to present this data, so that people can interact more with it. This seems to be a common challenge in the industry with lots of hype around 'big data' but few people able to make it meaningful and engaging."

Can OnTrees do it? That's something Mortimer would bet his money on.

OnTrees is a free download on the UK App Store.

iOS-only OnTrees hopes to be the Mint.com of the UK originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sat, 25 May 2013 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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PureShot, a US$1.99 universal app, takes a very shooting-oriented approach to photography on iOS. You don't process your images here, or add filters. Instead, you just use the tools provided to take the very best picture you can, then process it on your iOS device, or get it onto your Mac or PC and use a dedicated image editor.

I like that approach, because most do-it-all apps aren't strong in every feature. PureShot is dedicated to taking good pictures, and I think it succeeds at that goal.

The app features 2 quality levels for JPEG images, and even something called dRAW TIFF output, which is a TIFF file with no processing by the app or JPEG compression applied. There is spot metering and tap-to-focus, as well as focus and exposure locks. The app supports three-shot burst shooting, and three-shot bracketed exposures. The screen is loaded with information, including the current position provided by your iOS GPS chip, but you can clean up the screen with a tap of a button.

There is even a one-second exposure option, which provides good results in dark places if you can hold the iPhone steady or get it on a tripod using something like the Glif. Aspect ratio can be selected, but 4 x 3 gives you the full resolution of the iPhone's imaging chip.

Gallery: PureShot

In use, PureShot was generally intuitive and responsive without perceptible lag. There is extensive help built into the app, so anything that isn't clear should be easy to locate. The one-second exposure mode worked really well, letting me get some photos with the iPhone that I would not have been able to take otherwise.

I think PureShot gets about as much out of my iPhone camera as an app can get. It's easily more feature rich than the popular Camera +, but that app includes editing features.

If you plan to do some serious photography over the holiday weekend, PureShot is worth a purchase. It is not a do-it-all app, but it excels at getting good pictures, and it far outperforms the built-in Apple camera functions.

PureShot is a universal app, and is optimized for the iPhone 5. It requires iOS 5.1 or greater.

PureShot is a full featured iOS camera app originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 24 May 2013 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Combo Crew is an interesting experiment that just showed up this week on iOS. Beat-em-ups and fighting games are great on consoles, where you've got plenty of buttons and d-pads to pull off various moves with. But while they've appeared on iOS a few times (Capcom's Street Fighter IV has done fairly well on the App Store), usually these games on a touchscreen tend to just fall back on virtual buttons, which are generally way more clunky and less precise than physical moving parts.

Combo Crew, however, is an attempt to make a beat-em-up redesigned from scratch for the iOS touchscreen. It's a game made by the Game Bakers, a really excellent team based in France that's done a great job with the Squids turn-based combat series. Combo Crew has everything you'd want a beat-em-up game to have, including multiple characters, combination-based and counter attacks, and lots of cool super moves and punches. But the difference here is in the controls. Instead of pressing buttons, you swipe across the screen to perform your moves in sequence: Swipe once to attack, swipe and hold to charge up, swipe two fingers for a combo attack or tap the screen for a counter.

It works -- mostly. Just like a traditional beat-em-up game, Combo Crew's moveset gets more complicated over time, so that once mastered, you're able to keep combos going for a long time, scoring tons of points and taking down the bad guys with ease. Unfortunately, the biggest issue is that you're swiping right across the screen you're playing on, so sometimes it can be hard to see where you need to go. Thus, precision isn't always exactly where you want it to be. If you swipe the screen, you will do an attack, but there's no way to move around the screen independently, and as a result, you don't always attack the exact enemy you want, which can be a problem at higher levels.

Combo Crew is still a lot of fun, however, and The Game Bakers deserve a lot of credit for taking on such a tough genre to do on a touchscreen in such a creative way. There's even a co-op mode, and an endless-scoring game with plenty of various progression items to unlock and earn. If you like beat-em-ups and want something to enjoy on your iPhone, this one is a must-play for sure, just to see how it all works. The game is currently just $1.99, too, so if you're interested at all, give this one a download.

Daily iPhone App: Combo Crew does beat-em-up on a touchscreen originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 24 May 2013 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Happy Memorial Day Weekend! Here in the US, most of us are celebrating a three-day weekend that also serves as the start of summer, which means BBQs, poolside hangouts and lots and lots of time in the sun. Oh, and it means one more thing these days: iOS game sales (all prices USD)!

• Card game maker Playdek has an awesome sale on, including Ascension (and its IAP), Nightfall (and its IAP), Penny Arcade: The Card Game and Fluxx all for just 99 cents each. You should definitely pick up one or all of those -- Nightfall is complicated, but it's probably my favorite.
• Puzzlejuice is on sale for 99 cents; it's a really brilliantly designed word puzzle game.
• EA Mobile has a huge sale on, featuring more than 55 games either 99 cents or free. Some choice picks: Tetris Blitz, The Sims 3 for 99 cents, Need for Speed: Most Wanted for 99 cents, and NBA Jam also for just under a buck.
• Plague Inc is down to just 99 cents.
• High Voltage's great Zoombies: Animales de la Muerte just recently appeared on the App Store, but it's already on sale for 99 cents.
• The great board game adaptation Small World for iPad is down to just $2.99. This is an especially good deal, because the game's about to get a big update for free.
• WELDER is on sale for free. So is Pocket Heroes and Angry Birds Space.
• I didn't think AVP Evolution was that great a game, but it's only 99 cents right now.
• Penumbear is an excellent and beautiful platformer that's only 99 cents as well.
• Adventure Bar Story, which is a bar simulator set in a fantasy RPG world, is on sale for free.
• The excellent puzzle game Sporos is free.

There's plenty of games for you to play, and we'll probably see even more sales go on over the rest of this weekend. Stay tuned for more updates on app and game sales, and you can always follow us on Twitter at @TUAW for up-to-the-minute sale tips!

Memorial Day brings lots of great sales on iOS games originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 24 May 2013 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world.

You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here.

No Flash? Click here to listen.

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Daily Update for May 24, 2013 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 24 May 2013 17:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Act quickly mobile music producers. Propellerhead, makers of the recording software Reason, have announced that they will stop selling and supporting the iPhone app ReBirth on June 1. ReBirth is an iOS version of the company's Techno Micro Composer that started as a Mac program. The app emulates a Roland TB-303 bass synth and TR-808 and 909 drum machines. Using FX and sequencers, the app allows users to create whole songs.

The more expensive iPad version of ReBirth isn't going anywhere, so home producers will still have that option. Ultimately, the iPad version of the program is the strongest one, adding the ability to export your songs as MP3 files, unlike the iPhone version which can only share songs with other ReBirth for iPhone users.

Sadly along with pulling the app from the iTunes store Propellerhead is also pulling support for ReBirth, meaning users will no longer be able to share their songs with other users who have the app. By removing the app's only method of sharing the music it creates it seems like Propellerhead is intentionally crippling a popular feature on the app in favor of its iPad alternative.

ReBirth is stil available in the iTunes store for $2.99 until June 1.

Propellerhead to stop selling ReBirth for iPhone originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 24 May 2013 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ninja Theory is an excellent game developer based in the UK that's produced Enslaved: Odyssey to the West and the recent Devil May Cry reboot. Now, Ninja Theory is releasing its first iOS title, Fightback, which EA studio Chillingo will publish. Fightback, as you can see above, looks like a fairly gritty arcade-style beat-em-up, and it boasts some AAA grade production values, as well as some interesting touch-based combat.

Fightback is set for previews at E3, so we'll see more of the game in action then. It's set to launch on iOS later this summer. Chillingo is a very high-quality studio that's been doing plenty of good work lately, and with its ties to EA, it's no surprise that Ninja Theory gave it the go-ahead on publishing duties. Ninja Theory is a great studio, and we'll look forward to seeing how this one turns out.

Show full PR text Chillingo Partners with Ninja Theory Ltd. to Publish Fightback on Mobile and Tablet

Ninja Theory's Mobile Debut Playable at E3

MACCLESFIELD, U.K., May 24, 2013 - Chillingo, leading independent mobile games publisher and division of Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: EA), today announced that they are partnering with prominent Cambridge, UK-based independent video game developer Ninja Theory Ltd. to publish the studio's first mobile game, Fightback for the App Store and Google Play[TM].

From the award-winning studio behind Enslaved: Odyssey to the West and DmC: Devil May Cry, Ninja Theory's Fightback is a thrilling free-to-play action game with a striking 80s action movie vibe and a revolutionary touch-based combat system.

"Chillingo is very excited to collaborate with such a talented, critically-acclaimed studio to help shape their first title for the mobile market," states Ed Rumley, COO, Chillingo. "Our team is working closely with Ninja Theory to ensure Fightback delivers a phenomenal experience for mobile and tablet devices."

"Mobile and tablet gaming is a phenomenon that we just couldn't ignore as a studio and we're very proud to be working with one of the industry's heavy-weights on bringing Fightback to market. Ninja Theory has always strived for the highest production values and that absolutely remains the case in this exciting new space," said Dominic Matthews, Product Manager, Ninja Theory Ltd.

Fightback is slated to launch this summer. Hands-on previews will be shared with press at the E3 Expo in Los Angeles. Additional details and information will be available at www.chillingo.com in the coming months.

Ninja Theory partners with Chillingo to publish Fightback originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 24 May 2013 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple has further reduced the prices of refurbished iPad minis and fourth-generation iPads. The mini is now sporting a 15 percent discount, while the fourth-generation iPad has a 16 percent discount. You can find the new prices below for each respective model.

iPad mini

• 16 GB Wi-Fi: $279 refurbished $329 brand-new
• 32 GB Wi-Fi: $359 refurbished $429 brand-new
• 64 GB Wi-Fi: $439 refurbished $529 brand-new

• 16 GB Wi-Fi + Cellular: $389 refurbished $459 brand-new
• 32 GB Wi-Fi + Cellular: $469 refurbished $559 brand-new
• 64 GB Wi-Fi + Cellular: $549 refurbished $659 brand-new

Fourth-generation iPad

• 16 GB Wi-Fi: $419 refurbished $499 brand-new
• 32 GB Wi-Fi: $499 refurbished $599 brand-new
• 64 GB Wi-Fi: $579 refurbished $699 brand-new

• 16 GB Wi-Fi + Cellular: $529 refurbished $629 brand-new
• 32 GB Wi-Fi + Cellular: $609 refurbished $729 brand-new
• 64 GB Wi-Fi + Cellular: $689 refurbished $829 brand-new

Apple cuts prices on refurbished iPad mini, iPad 4 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 24 May 2013 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Being the sucker that I am for well-designed user interfaces, I was immediately intrigued by the new Wake Alarm app (US$1.99 launch price) from Tiny Hearts. For just a couple of bucks, you're going to get an alarm app that is easy to set, lets you snooze with a quick slap of your iPhone and turns off only if you actually have the energy to turn the iPhone over.

Launching Wake Alarm displays the current time in a light blue ring on a blue and purple gradient. To set the alarm time, spin the ring with a finger to set the minutes or tap on the hour and spin the ring to quickly jump through the hours.

When you're ready to go to sleep, a quick swipe to the right puts Wake Alarm into night mode, which displays the time in a very dim and unobtrusive way. Note that you'll need to leave your iPhone turned on, plugged in and face-up while you sleep.

At the preset time, Wake Alarm greets you with a cheery orange sun, the words "Good Morning" and your choice of a dozen alarm sounds ranging from the soothing (ocean sounds and seabirds) to the annoying (a drill instructor waking up boot camp participants). To snooze for a preset amount of time, just reach out and slap the top of the iPhone screen, and you're back in dreamland for a while. When you decide that it's actually time to get up, just flip your iPhone over and the alarm is turned off.

That "slap and flip" method is one of three wakeup methods -- you can also set your iPhone to respond to a shake, perfect for those slugabeds who are going to need a bit more coaxing to get out of bed, or a swipe.

Of all of the many alarm apps that are on the market, Wake Alarm is without a doubt the most intuitive and beautiful I've had the pleasure of waking me up. It's a keeper! Check out the developer's video below ... but don't spoil your Memorial Day weekend by waking up early, OK?

Wake Alarm wants you to get out of bed ... now! originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 24 May 2013 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Type2Phone (US$4.99) is one of the most practical tools in my development toolbox. It emulates a Bluetooth keyboard from your Mac. With it, you type to your iOS device using your normal desktop keyboard.

While this may not sound like a big thing for many iOS users -- after all, the onboard keyboards and new dictation features streamline text entry -- it is a huge deal for devs and IT coordinators who have to keep typing similar things into apps and settings, over and over again.

For example, take Game Center development. You usually work with many different accounts, testing to see how access works for new users, for those with a good history of application use or for those who have unlocked certain achievements. In a normal debug session, you may sign out and sign in with various credentials dozens of times. Type2Phone makes that a practical exercise in testing instead of torment.

Or, take today. I was trying to set up a SOCKS proxy system and had to keep typing addresses for various configurations. Once again Type2Phone came to the rescue. It's so much more practical to type or paste longwinded URLs like http://10.0.0.1:8888/Public/socks.pac from my home desktop than to laboriously tip-tip-tap it on the phone or iPad.

Type2Phone was designed smartly, with re-use in mind. I long ago synced it to my primary dev units. Now, I just select each unit from the in-app pop-up list, and I'm ready to type right away.

To be fair, there are a few unhappy reviews over at the Mac App Store, but they describe situations (primarily beachballs) that I have not encountered, and I'm a pretty heavy user of the product.

For me, Type2Phone is an essential software component. My development life would be way harder without it. And that's why I consider it my Friday favorite for this week.

Friday Favorite: Type2Phone originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 24 May 2013 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In less than two weeks, Apple will head to trial over allegations that it colluded with five publishing houses in an effort to inflate the price of e-books. Indeed, the Justice Department last week released internal Apple emails which it claims supports the allegation that Apple was a "ringleader" in a price-fixing conspiracy.

In one such email, Apple executive Eddy Cue explained to Steve Jobs that he was able to secure a deal with Random House by threatening to block an app of theirs from getting into the App Store.

With a trial on the matter scheduled to kick off on June 3, Bloomberg reports that US District Judge Denise Cote -- who happens to be overseeing the trial -- expressed confidence that the government will be able to prove its case against Apple.

I believe that the government will be able to show at trial direct evidence that Apple knowingly participated in and facilitated a conspiracy to raise prices of e-books, and that the circumstantial evidence in this case, including the terms of the agreements, will confirm that.

The judge's comments seem a bit curious because, as Bloomberg notes, this will not be a jury trial. Judge Cote alone will be deciding the case on its merits. Consequently, one wonders why Cote is comfortable expressing such a strong view before hearing any testimony and the full breadth of arguments from both parties. To that end, Judge Cote did qualify that her opinion at this point is tentative.

In an emailed statement to Bloomberg, Apple lawyer Orin Snyder remarked:

We strongly disagree with the court's preliminary statements about the case. The court made clear that this was not a final ruling and that the evidence at trial will determine the verdict. This is what a trial is for.

Apple has previously stated that it was not operating with the intent to artificially increase the price of e-books, but rather wanted to foster innovation in the e-book marketplace and break "Amazon's monopolistic grip on the publishing industry."

Judge reportedly leaning towards DoJ in Apple e-book case originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 24 May 2013 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When your Mac starts acting unreliably your first line of defense is Apple's Disk Utility, but that solves a small number of problems, such as permissions and disk verification and repair. A good second line of defense is Drive Genius 3 for Mac from Prosoft Engineering. Drive Genius offers repair and maintenance utilities you can use to make sure your hard drive runs at maximum efficiency.

This US$99 suite of programs includes the following modules: Information, Defrag, DriveSlim, Repair, Scan, DrivePulse, Integrity Check, Initialize, Repartition, Duplicate, Shred, Benchtest, and Sector Edit. When you launch Drive Genius you can choose any one of the available utilities from a set of icons displayed across two screens. Each module presents an option to choose a drive, volume or files and folders on the right, depending on the utility's purpose.

Options available for each utility appear in the main window with simple instructions. A question mark icon on the bottom right opens the help file. The simple Preferences offer three options. You can choose to show the custom animation of data moving around a disk as a tool works, check for updates, and turn on email notification when a tool finishes its task. This last preference is a subtle reminder that many of the functions take a significant amount of time to run.

The Modules

The Information module provides a complete description of your hard drive, probably more information than you want. The balance of the modules are best run after you backup your data, in case of unexpected problems.

Scan, Integrity Check, and Benchtest run read and write tests on your hard drive. They check for bad blocks, the health of your hardware, and in Benchtest, test the drives read and write speeds. As these tests sort of hammer on your drive, any electrical interruption or serious drive problem can result in data loss. That's one good reason to make sure you have a good backup or copy of your drive on hand. The Duplicate module can create a backup for you, but as with many of these tools, it will not copy your current start-up drive unless you start from a different drive. Duplicate creates a bit-by-bit copy of your drive, so you must use a blank drive of equal or greater size to use it. Personally, I prefer Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! to backup my drives, but including a backup module in Drive Genius just makes sense.

It's actually best to use the Drive Genius startup disk from which to run most of the tools. These tests chew through quite a bit of time, so make sure you run the programs when you don't need the machine for a number of hours.

The problem I often solve using Drive Genius 3 is a slow drive and one that mysteriously is eating up space at a surprising rate. That's where DriveSlim and Defrag come in handy.

DriveSlim is useful to search for large files, duplicate files over 1 MB, Unused Localizations (language files you don't need), Universal Binaries, and Cache and Temporary files you no longer need. I'm not quite sure I understand how it works though. I wasn't happy with the way DriveSlim displays the information, I found that it showed duplicates that were not, but only with files over 320 MB. On one drive, using Mac OS X 10.6.8, it listed both duplicate files and on another, in OS X 10.8, it listed only one file and I had to search for the duplicate in the Finder to see where it was stored. I then manually removed the file stored in the wrong folder. I'm sure that's not the way the tool was designed to work, but I was not confident to just check a box next to the DriveSlim found file and have it decide which file to keep, where to alias that file, or where to back up the file. You can choose which of the files to locate, but if you choose to act on only one type of file, you must run DriveSlim again to work on another type of file. Time consuming to say the least.

Even though most people claim you don't need to defragment a Mac-based hard drive, the OS actually only defragments files that are less than 20 MB. If you create or edit sound, video, or photographic files, you may have some hefty sized files on your drive(s). As Apple states in one of its manpages for XSan: "There are two major types of fragmentation to note: file fragmentation and free space fragmentation." "A file extent is a contiguous allocation unit within a file. When a large enough contiguous space cannot be found to allocate to a file, multiple smaller file extents are created. Each extent represents a different physical spot in a storage pool. Requiring multiple extents to address file data impacts performance in a number of ways."

In short, if pieces of the file you want to use are scattered all over your hard drive, it is working harder to deliver that file to you, slowing your workflow, and potentially reducing the lifespan of your hard drive. In checking a couple of my hard drives I found movie files that were divided into over 2000 fragments and photo files with over 100 fragments. When you run Defrag the files are concatenated into one whole file and the free space is moved to one area. I did test defragmenting my startup drive, not a recommended action to take, but I have a current backup. Drive Genius reboots your Mac into the Command Line and runs the defrag command, which also repairs your drive and reboots your Mac when its done. It worked fine, but a bit unnerving to watch.

The Repair module seems to duplicate the functions of Disk Utility, such as verify and repair disk errors and permissions. It will also rebuild the drive's catalog file.

The rest of the modules are aimed at setting up your drives. You can Initialize a drive and format it for GUID (recommended for Intel Macs) or use the old Apple Partition Map. You can also Repartition a volume, but not your start up drive-unless you start off the Drive Genius 3 disc. Partitioning lets you divide one drive into multiple volumes. I seem to be one of the few people who still partitions my drives and use this function when I first use a new drive. Explanation of initializing, partitioning, and Sector Editing your drive are beyond the scope of this review, but you can find more information on the Drive Genius site and in the Help file. One word of caution, if you do not know exactly what you are doing, never use Sector Edit, because it can corrupt the drive and render files useless.

Last is the newest module, added in Drive Genius 2, DrivePulse. This module loads into your Apple menu bar and monitors your drives in the background. I found it unnecessary on my new iMac, but have used it in the past on older machines. It checks for fragmentation, and file and physical drive problems. On my new iMac most of the drives I loaded yielded a Pending status. It checks drives when the machine is idle, so it doesn't interrupt your work. You can turn it off from the menu item or within Drive Genius.

Conclusion

The one thing Drive Genius will not do is run any tests on a drive that has serious physical problems, which is a shame. I started my tests using a 160 GB Iomega Ego that had trouble mounting. Anyone who deals with drives knows that clicks means ensuing death, but usually you have a little time to remove your files before the drive goes belly up. Well, this drive with three partitions fell off my desktop within 5 minutes. Drive Genius could see it initially, but would not run any tests and I couldn't recover anything from it.

Drive Genius 3 is especially useful if you create or edit very large files. For this review, I tested version 3.2.2, but have also used version 1 and 2 in the past. The price of Drive Genius pales against the cost of a new hard drive. At about $7.60 per module, it helps you keep your machine lean and mean and working at peak efficiency.

Requirements: Intel-based Mac
OS X 10.6.8 to 10.8.x
1 GB RAM
Does not support Drobo drives
Limited support for FAT32, ExFAT, NTFS, and Software RAID
Upgrade from competing product for $75

Ailing Mac? Try Drive Genius 3 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 24 May 2013 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Backblaze, the online backup company that has made TUAW headlines with its innovative open-source 180 TB Storage Pods and drop-dead simple Mac backups, today announced a way to get mobile access to your backed-up data. Backblaze Mobile for iPhone (free) works for any current or future Backblaze customers running an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch with iOS 5.1 or later.

After logging into a Backblaze account with user credentials, users are presented with stats for each computer backed up on the service, including the number and size of files stored and when the last backup was performed. There's a browser for going through backups to look for specific files, and any file can be downloaded to the iOS device to be used or shared with others.

The Backblaze service is priced from as low as US$3.96 per month when pre-purchased for a year or more, or can be subscribed to on a monthly billing basis.

Backblaze Mobile for iPhone provides on-the-go access to file backups originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 24 May 2013 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AT&T's prepay GoPhone service is to include an iPhone purchase option as of today. The service will also gain the addition of 4G LTE and HSPA+ support, according to MacRumors. GoPhone lets users sign up for AT&T service without joining a contract. Previously, iPhone owners could sign up for the service but they would have no access to cellular data. With the update expected to roll out today, iPhone owners will be able to access all of AT&T's services on a GoPhone contract, including 4G LTE and Visual Voicemail.

MacRumors says that iPhone owners will have three options for GoPhone service. The highest-priced one is a US$65 plan that offers unlimited texts and calls and one gigabyte of data. AT&T is also offering $50 and $25 plans that include text and calls, but users will have to add additional data plans on top. When choosing a GoPhone plan, users can bring in their existing unlocked iPhone or they can buy an unlocked iPhone from AT&T in the store. MacRumors says that current GoPhone plan owners will be automatically updated with cellular data support for their iPhone on June 21, but the site says that those that want to see cellular data support before then may be able to have their plan manually upgraded first.

AT&T's GoPhone prepaid brand to fully support iPhone originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 24 May 2013 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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No WWDC tickets? No matter. AltWWDC is a free, five-day event that will be held in San Francisco June 10-14, 2013. Today, the group has announced AltLabs, which will serve as dedicated lab space for attendees. Each lab will be staffed by helpful folks who are there to answer your questions or just act as a sounding board.

In addition, several special labs have been announced, including one on connectivity and web services, hosted by Matt Thompson of Heroku and AFNetworking; Isaiah Carew of Kiwi and Kirby Turner. You'll find the full run-down here.

Keep an eye out for familiar faces while you're there, including our own Victor Agreda, Kelly Guimont and Brett Terpstra.

AltWWDC announces AltLabs dedicated lab space originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 24 May 2013 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AllThingsD is reporting that Best Buy plans to begin a monthlong iPhone sale on Sunday. iPhone prices will drop by US$50 when bought in conjunction with a two-year contract from AT&T, Sprint or Verizon. All current models of the iPhone -- iPhone 4, iPhone 4S and iPhone 5 -- are included.

This coming Monday in the United States is Memorial Day, and the weekend prior is a big shoppers' weekend. Best Buy is also offering discounts on several popular Android handsets, but those discounts are expected to expire on June 1. There's no word on why Best Buy's iPhone sale will carry on for an entire month, but it could be that the company is trying to move inventory before any potential iPhone announcements this summer.

Best Buy to begin month-long iPhone sale on Sunday originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 24 May 2013 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Smule may be only 5 years old, but the California development firm started in part by Jeff Smith and Stanford Assistant Professor Dr. Ge Wang has had an amazing impact on the world. The company shared some stats with Evolver.fm that are incredible -- Smule's apps have been downloaded over 100 million times, are used by 15 million people a month and that audience has recorded over 1 billion songs.

Sure, those songs may be amateur auto-tuned, auto-rapped or karaoke trash, but the statistics -- and Smule's bottom line -- prove that the company is on to something. While such venerable music gaming titles as Rock Band and Guitar Hero have seen better days, Smule's apps are all about actually making music, and that seems to make a difference to app consumers.

Smule pulled in US$12.6 million in revenues last year, and is expected to reach the $20 million mark in 2013. The latest addition to the Smule stable is Guitar! (free), a music game released yesterday in which users play along with recordings of popular songs to gain points and where practicing opens the door to new levels and songs.

[via GigaOM]

Smule users record 1 billion songs originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 24 May 2013 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple is continuing to roll out increased Maps 3D Flyover coverage. The latest update was first spotted by AppleInsider and appears to include large parts of California. Specifically, the latest update includes the cities of San Bernardino, Riverside, Rancho Cucamonga, Ontario, Moreno Valley and more.

This update covers Anaheim as well, so users can now view a 3D Flyover of Disneyland in Apple Maps. It seems like Apple is continuing to roll out aggressive server-side updates to Apple Maps. Only a little more than two weeks ago Apple added 3D Flyover coverage in Paris.

Apple expands iOS Maps' 3D Flyover coverage in California, including Disneyland originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 24 May 2013 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Following up on an announcement made at the end of April, Verizon has begun rolling out its Verizon Cloud storage solution to iOS devices today. Verizon Cloud offers Verizon users a free 500 MB of cloud storage to backup their photos, videos, contacts, music, call logs and text messages. Users who want more storage can buy it at a monthly fee of US$2.99/month for 25 GB, $5.99/month for 75 GB and $9.99/month for 125 GB.

The Verizon Cloud service lets users stream music and sync data between devices, including photos, videos and documents. Users can also access their files via the web and desktop applications. On the iPhone, users can manage their Verizon Cloud account through the free Verizon Cloud app.

Verizon Cloud comes to iOS devices originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 24 May 2013 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Marketwatch recently took a look at the rising price of iPhone 5 screen repairs, pointing out that the US$229 Apple sometimes charges to repair a broken iPhone 5 screen is often more than the cost of the device itself, with a two-year contract of course.

At the root of rising iPhone repair costs are more expensive components coupled with a lower supply of said components.

The replacement components for the iPhone 5 are much more expensive than similar parts for prior models -- so expensive in fact that many independent repair services cannot compete. "Due to the high cost of replacement parts, we are not yet offering iPhone 5 repairs," according to a statement on ComputerOverhauls.com, an online repair shop. "Currently, the Apple Store is the least expensive option for repairing damaged iPhone 5s." Other services charge as much as $250 for the repair.

The article also relays that the iPhone 5 is actually easier to fix than previous iPhone models. Replacing a display on the iPhone 4S, for example, involves 37 steps.

Oh cruel irony.

All told, AppleCare+ for iPhone owners is steadily looking like the smart play. I opted not to get AppleCare when I picked up my iPhone 4S. Then, 15 months later, the screen cracked after I clumsily let it slip out of my hand.

With AppleCare+, which costs $99, Apple extends warranty coverage on the iPhone to two years, a plan which covers two incidents of accidental damage along with a $49 service fee. Damage not caused by human error or clumsiness is not subject to an additional service fee.

iPhone repair costs are soaring originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 24 May 2013 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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