iBeacon Technology Begins Moving Into the Home and NBA Arenas

Apple’s iBeacon technology is poised to influence the retail sector by offering a personalized shopping experience to customers, but it may also have personal benefits by interacting with apps when a user is at home.

As spotted by TechCrunch, new iOS app Placed gives us a glimpse into personal iBeacon usage, linking an incoming iBeacon signal to apps associated with common household activities. With appropriately placed iBeacons, you could enable the remote when you sit on the couch or start a timer when you step up to the oven to cook.

It’s an early implementation of iBeacon technology as the app integration is only partially automated, sending a notification to your phone that requires you to manually launch an app before anything happens. It an interesting use of iBeacon technology, though, and a small step towards a wider use of iBeacons the automated home.

Besides personal and retail use, iBeacon technology also is being used in sports to assist fans and add to the overall game experience. The Golden State Warriors became the first NBA team to adopt Apple’s iBeacon technology, installing the Bluetooth transmitters in the team’s home arena, reports Business Week.

The iBeacon technology is being used to boost ticket sales by prompting fans to upgrade their tickets as they make their way to their nosebleed seats inside Oracle Arena. The Warriors, as well as other sports teams, already offer seat upgrades through their mobile apps, but this is the first time iBeacons have been used to boost ticket sales in this way.

Tim Cook Highlights ‘Magical’ iPad Doo-Wop Duet Between Billy Joel and Jimmy Fallon

Last night on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon, Billy Joel joined the talk show host in a doo-wop video so entertaining that it was singled out by Tim Cook on Twitter.

Check this out. @jimmyfallon and @billyjoel with iPad and a cool app called Loopy HD. Magical. http://t.co/dWlZr6Lsm6

— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) March 21, 2014

The featured iPad app is Loopy HD [Direct Link], which allows you to create music by layering loops that you record yourself. Fallon and Joel sang The Lion Sleeps Tonight, a song made popular in the 1960s by doo-wop group The Tokens. The pair sang different parts of the song in an amusing exchange that features a solo by Fallon and the always powerful vocals of Joel.

This isn’t the first time the musical aspect of the iPad has taken center stage on Fallon’s talk shows. In a 2010 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon episode that aired shortly after the original iPad was launched, Fallon invited English New Wave band Squeeze to the stage, with keyboardist Stephen Large splitting his performance between a Roland VK-8 and an iPad.

iPad Lifecycle Mirrors Macs and Maybe Even TVs Rather Than iPhones

A new report by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) suggests iPad owners replace their tablets less frequently than their iPhone-owning counterparts, who upgrade almost every two years. The longer iPad replacement cycle may be more like the Mac, which tends to be replaced every 2-4 years, or possibly even televisions which have a five to 10-year ownership span. (Via Fortune)

The CIRP report, which surveyed 2,000 U.S. customers who purchased an iPhone, iPad or Mac in 2013, shows that almost half of iPad owners will go without their tablet, waiting a week or more to replace a broken, lost or stolen device. They also are twice as likely as iPhone owners to give their older iPad to friends or family members.

“We think Apple would prefer the iPad become a big iPhone,” the report concludes. “We suspect, though, based on recent CIRP data about how buyers use them, that it’s as much like a Mac, TV, or iPod, with less frequent replacement.”

This replacement rate could affect future sales, driving them down as the tablet market becomes saturated. In this scenario, consumers would hold onto an iPad for a longer period of time, and future first-time iPad owners would be more likely to receive an older iPad than buy a new one.

Even as competition increases and the tablet market slows, Apple still is the top tablet vendor worldwide with 36 percent market share, according to Gartner’s March 2014 report. The Cupertino company sold a record 26 million iPads in Q1 2014 and 195 million tablets overall.

Apple Rolls Out New ‘Indie Game Showcase’ Section on App Store [iOS Blog]

Apple has added a new “Indie Game Showcase” section on the App Store dedicated to games made by independent studios, reports MacStories. The page promises to regularly highlight notable titles from indie developers, as well as their favorite games from other studios. For its inaugural showcase, Apple highlighted action-thriller game Device 6 from developer Simogo, which was chosen as a runner up for Game of the Year during Apple’s Best of the iTunes Store 2013 awards.

Often made up of just a few dedicated members, independent studios prove that what really matters is the size of your dream. In each Indie Game Showcase, we celebrate a popular game and its creative team, highlighting the developer’s titles along with their favorite games from other studios.

Various indie games have seen a great amount of success on Apple’s App Store since it first launched in 2008, with titles like Flappy Bird, Doodle Jump, and Fruit Ninja becoming international hits. Popular indie titles made for other consoles have also begun appearing on iOS, with games such as Terraria and Limbo seeing releases on Apple’s platform.

Apple Seeds OS X Mavericks 10.9.3 Build 13D21 to Developers [Mac Blog]

Apple today seeded build 13D21 of OS X 10.9.3 to developers, one week after releasing the second OS X 10.9.3 beta, build 13D17 and two weeks after the first 10.9.3 beta. The beta is available through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store as well as through the Mac Dev Center.

Apple is currently asking developers to focus on Graphics Drivers and Audio. As was discovered with the first beta, 10.9.3 adds new support for 4K displays, offering “Retina” resolutions that improve readability along with support for 60Hz output from the Retina MacBook Pro.

Apple has also released the new 11.1.6 iTunes beta to developers, which was initially seeded to Apple employees earlier this week. The beta restores the ability to locally sync contacts and calendars, a feature that was removed with the launch of Mavericks.

Civilization V Updated for Mac Pro, Includes 4K and OpenCL Support [Mac Blog]

Aspyr has updated Civilization V with support for the new Mac Pro, offering OpenCL frameworks to improve performance on NVIDIA and ATI chipsets in OS X Mavericks, as well as 4K resolution.

The company says Civilization V is the only game on the Mac to support both video cards on the Mac Pro, and users should see faster game and visual performance.

Mac gamers that play on the Mac Pro will now be able to fully take advantage of the machine’s second video card, which means better visuals and improved performance for the critically acclaimed strategy game. In particular, Civilization V on the Mac Pro will now support 4k monitors while running into fewer crashes. Additionally, the game should run faster (meaning less waiting in between turns in late-game situations).

This update makes Civilization V the only Mac game that currently supports the second video card on the Mac Pro. It should automatically download and install for Steam users; Mac App users can head to the Mac App Store to get the update. For even more info on how to take advantage of the new update, check out the knowledge base article over at our Support site.

Civilization V is available on the Mac from the Mac App Store [$14.99], Steam, and Aspyr’s GameAgent digital store. The game is being offered for 50% off temporarily on the GameAgent store alongside the update.