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The three-ring circus that always surrounds Apple’s quarterly earnings report is once again behind us, paving the way for the debut of the iPad Air this Friday. Regardless of whether the financial results impressed or not, Apple appears to be marching to the beat of its own drummer, especially when referring to the iPhone 5c as a “mid-range” device rather than the entry-level device analysts assumed it would be. But enough about that, you’re probably curious what else went down on Monday…
Did You Notice Apple Modified iPhone 5s Burst Mode?
GottaBeMobile reported Monday that iOS 7.0.2 and 7.0.3 weren’t strictly about bug fixes — for owners of the iPhone 5s, the updates also included a welcome change to the built-in camera’s burst mode. The original release offered a way to select favorite images, with no way to easily get rid of the unwanted images in a burst series. That’s now changed, and after selecting favorites, the app asks the user if they want to keep everything or keep only the selected images, deleting the others. It’s a small tweak, but a very welcome one for those of us who have gotten used to the convenience of burst mode, but didn’t like the headache of manual deletion.
Cinemaware Strikes Back with Rocket Ranger for iOS, Android
Former Commodore Amiga video game publisher Cinemaware announced Monday that its 1988 title Rocket Ranger will be heading to iOS and Android devices in early November. The company has been slowly resurrecting its classic titles for modern platforms starting with Defender of the Crown, but Rocket Ranger will see the return of a World War II-inspired hero based on TV sci-fi serials from the 1950’s, complete with “dogfights, shootouts, fist fights, a nefarious plot involving a kidnapped scientist’s daughter” and much more. This one was a personal favorite of ours back in our Amiga days, so we’re looking forward to it!
Majority of Digital Music Sells Fewer Than 1K Copies
Now here’s a depressing statistic for those of you in garage bands: 98.9 percent of all digital music tracks sold fewer than 1,000 copies. Even more depressing: 73.9 percent sold fewer than 10 copies! According to Business Insider, this 2011 data comes from a new book by Harvard Business School Professor Anita Elberse called Blockbusters: Hit-making, Risk-taking, and the Big Business of Entertainment, which offers similarly sad numbers for full album sales as well. The data effectively wipes out the old belief that 80 percent of music sales come from 20 percent of products — Elberse now claims that formula is more like 80/1 at best. Rock on, dudes!
Clear Adds iOS 7 Background Refresh
Realmac Software announced Monday a minor update to both Clear and Clear+ which brings a welcome new change: Support for iOS 7 Background Refresh. “iOS 7 launches your most frequently-used apps in the background throughout the day, allowing them to refresh their data,” the blog post explains. “This means that, with today’s update, Clear will refresh your lists from iCloud to ensure they’re always up to date on all your devices.” And thanks to iOS 7’s Automatic Update feature, you may already have the most recent version already installed, even without knowing it! Ah, technology…
Glass Staircase at Apple’s New Shanghai Store Breaks
ifo Apple Store is reporting that the grand opening of Apple’s new Shanghai iapm retail store in China over the weekend didn’t go off completely without a hitch. With less than a day to go before Saturday’s event, one of the treads in the glass spiral staircase fell out of its mounting and crashed to the floor in pieces. Employees quickly threw up a black curtain to obstruct the view from those waiting in line outside while the fallen tread was replaced, and no one was hurt during the incident, with the exception of some damage to the actual floor beneath the staircase. The Shanghai iapm store marks the city’s fourth location, and the grand opening proceeded as planned.
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