Apple relaxes restrictions on iOS app code, iAd analytics

Recent revisions to the iOS developer agreements caused considerable controversy by restricting which programming languages could be used to develop iOS apps. Those changes also restricted what kind of analytics data could be collected by developers and advertisers. Now, however, Apple has backed off on its position: it will relax these rules in order to give developers more flexibility. Additionally, Apple will now actually publish a list of app review guidelines for developers?the first time the company has done so since the App Store launched more than two years ago.

The controversy ignited when Apple released the first betas of iOS 4 to developers. Those betas came with revisions to the iOS Developer Agreement, which governs what developers are allowed to do when creating iPhone and iPad apps. In particular, section 3.3.1 restricted the development languages to Objective-C, C, or C++. This would have locked out a number of third-party development platforms, which allowed developers to use JavaScript, C#, and even Flash to develop native iOS apps.

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Amazon, which has remained dedicated to online sales from its start, is joining forces with traditional retailer Best Buy to put Kindle e-readers on sale in stores for the holiday buying season. The arrangement, announced this morning, will see both WiFi and 3G Kindles put on display alongside other e-reader offerings this fall; the larger DX will join them at some later date. Best Buy already carries Sony Readers and is the only outlet outside of Barnes & Noble that offers that company's Nook device.

The lure for Best Buy is pretty obvious; access to a device that may be the top-selling e-reader on the market. (Amazon doesn't divulge sales numbers, but informal sightings in airports and on public transit suggests the Kindle is doing relatively well.) For Amazon, however, the move continues its efforts to pump up Kindle sales in the offline arena, which marks a significant shift for the company.

The decision to offer Amazon-branded hardware in the first place was a major departure for the company, and all signs indicate that the company is making a major push to carve out a big space in the market for dedicated e-readers (and, in the process, expand the market). These include some significant price drops and the recent introduction of a cheaper, WiFi-only model, along with the start of international sales. All of these steps seem intended to get as many people using Kindles?and locked into Amazon's DRMed content?as quickly as possible.

From this perspective, the continuing move into retail makes sense. The price drops placed the low-end model into what might be considered an impulse buy for some people, while browsing Amazon is rarely an impulse activity. The low prices are also likely to make the Kindle look pretty good in comparison to the competitors it will be put on display with.

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Why a school beats Facebook: how behaviors spread through networks

We all spend much of our days engaged in social networks, whether it?s online, at work, or out with our friends, and we have a tendency to pick up new habits through these connections. A new study in Science set out to determine how behaviors travel through these social networks, and how the topography of the networks affects the diffusion of the behaviors.

The experiment studied two different structures of social networks. In "random" networks, individuals are connected to others scattered throughout the network by connections that are called "long ties." In more "clustered" networks, social ties exist mostly between individuals that are close together in the network; there are few (if any) long ties connecting individuals from different topographical areas.

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Plan to organize the Internet turns out to be a pipe dream

As the Internet continues to grow, it may be in everyone's best interest to organize how its various parts connect to each other, according to a paper published in Nature Communications. A group of researchers have developed a system that structures the Internet's nodes by coordinates, and allows each node to send information through a short hyperbolic path by knowing only which of its neighboring nodes will get the information closer to its destination. While the theoretical implementation works almost perfectly, the geographical realities of the Internet's arrangement suggest that efficient, scalable arrangements like this one may never come to pass.

The Internet, such as it is, is a series of autonomous systems (AS, not tubes). An individual AS can be viewed as any part of the Internet owned and maintained by a single entity, and can range in size from a single person to AT&T. Connections between autonomous systems are what allow information on the Internet to get around, and a few groups of researchers are beginning to see the disjointed business arrangements between autonomous systems as a potential problem.

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The signal problems caused by the iPhone 4's antenna design generated a lot of press, but what affect did the issue have on sales? That's the question that Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster attempted to answer with a survey that he shared in a recent research note. His conclusion: the "antennagate" problem impacted potential sales as much as 20 percent, but that's nothing compared to sales lost because the iPhone is locked exclusively to AT&T.

The survey was conducted on 258 random cell phone users in Minneapolis. Though limiting responses from just one urban area means there could be some bias towards a particular carrier, the respondents were spread across the four major carriers. Among those surveyed, about 30 percent each already used an iPhone, BlackBerry, or "other" phone, while about 10 percent used an Android phone.

Of those surveyed, 69 percent said they were aware of the problems with the iPhone 4 antenna design. That's not surprising given that the issue was widely publicized immediately after the device launched, eventually necessitating a special press conference from Apple to address the problem. However, only 20 percent of those aware of the problem said it negatively impacted their decision to buy one.

A bigger issue, noted Munster, is three times as many respondents brought up the issue that the iPhone isn't available on Verizon?without prompting from the surveyors. "The antenna issue is removing upside potential for iPhone units, but Verizon is actually the most significant factor limiting demand," he wrote.

Though the survey population is somewhat limited, this jibes with what we have heard in and around the Orbiting HQ. When people see me using my iPhone 4 in public, the most common question is, "What is the reception like? I heard the antenna is bad." After discussing the issue, however, the most common conclusion tends to be, "Yeah, I'll probably end up getting one anyway."

In a recent Ars reader poll about Verizon iPhone availability, more than half the respondents that are current AT&T iPhone users would switch to Verizon if the iPhone was available on that carrier. Nearly half the respondents were current Verizon customers that would get an iPhone if it were available. Clearly, breaking free of AT&T's exclusivity could tap a large potential market for new iPhone users.

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On August 20, Canada's Privy Council Office issued an order targeting Apple and the company's new Canadian version of the iBookstore. Referred to simply as an "order authorizing a review under the Investment Canada Act of Apple Canada, Inc.?s proposed establishment of a new cultural business carried on by iBookstore in Canada," the order means that Apple's investment in Canada will be scrutinized by the government to make sure it aids "Canadian culture."

The decision was noted today by Canadian law professor Michael Geist, and it relies on a section of the Investment Canada Act that allows the government to review investments for "cultural reasons."

The text of the brief order points to section 15 of the Investment Canada Act, which allows the government to review any investment, even those that would not normally be reviewable. The only stipulation is that the investment must concern "a prescribed specific type of business activity that, in the opinion of the Governor in Council, is related to Canada's cultural heritage or national identity."

Given persistent Canadian concerns about being overrun with American TV shows and movies and having the country's digital music market controlled by iTunes, it's clear the government wants to take a closer look at Apple's decision to open a major new e-bookstore in Canada.

Canada's Financial Post took a dim view of the decision, saying that "the government might do well to start the review process by asking the millions of iPod, iPhone and iPad owners of Canada for their views on the matter. Though we all already know what they would say."

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Today 377 members of the European Parliament adopted a written declaration on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) in which they demand greater transparency, assert that ISPs should not up end being liable for data sent through their networks, and say that ACTA "should not force limitations upon judicial due process or weaken fundamental rights such as freedom of expression and the right to privacy."

The "written declaration" has no binding force; any MEP can issue one (there's a 200-word maximum), which is adopted when more than half of all MEPs sign on. If adopted, "written declarations are printed and posted on a board at the entrance to the Chambers in Strasbourg and Brussels." They also go up on the Web and get passed on to the European Commission.

But the declaration does give the ACTA negotiators a sense of the parliamentary will; in this case, Parliament has many concerns about both substance and process.

Some of these have already been addressed; the most recent leaked ACTA draft shows that ISP liability has been removed, for instance. Others, like concerns of access to medicines, especially those in transit from countries with looser patent systems, continue to be areas of concern?and have been for some time.

La Quadrature du Net, a French group that heavily backed the declaration, sees it as a sign that ACTA is doomed.

"Written Declaration 12 is a strong political signal sent by the EP to the Commission that ACTA is not tolerable as a way of bypassing democratic processes. Legislation related to Internet, freedom of speech and privacy cannot be negotiated in secrecy under the direct influence of entertainment industry lobbies," said spokesperson Jérémie Zimmermann. "Full rejection of ACTA is the only option."

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BP's oil spill report traces a cascade of epic fail

Today, BP released a report on its own internal investigation into the Deepwater oil spill, which continued uncontrolled for months following what the report calls "a complex and interlinked series" of error and failures. The report is one of a number in progress, performed by both the companies involved and various governmental agencies, and it's not intended to be complete?there's an entire section devoted to information the investigators would have liked to have access to, but didn't. Nevertheless, it provides a detailed chronology of what went wrong, and why none of the safety equipment and procedures that were in place were effective.

The events that triggered the Deepwater failure started with the preparations for the departure of the ship that drilled the well, a process termed "abandonment."  At this point, the well extended into what the report terms the "primary reservoir sands" from which hydrocarbons would be harvested. Since these are under pressure relative to the top of the well, the intent was to seal it using concrete. It was at this point that things started to go wrong.

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Apple drops iOS 4.1 this afternoon as new iPods hit the streets

The new iPod models announced last week are now available at retail Apple Stores, while preorders are arriving on doorsteps across the country. And for current iPhone and iPod users, Apple has released iOS 4.1?now available via iTunes.

The update brings several new feature additions, including a high-dynamic range photo option for the iPhone 4, support for TV show rentals, the ability to send 720p video uploads to YouTube and MobileMe, support for AVRCP-compatible accessories, FaceTime calling directly from favorites, and support for FaceTime calls from front-camera-equipped iPod touches.

iOS 4.1 also brings the launch of Apple's centralized gaming social network, Game Center. With Game Center support, you can add friends, challenge them to head-to-head matches, get matched up with new players based on skill level, view high scores and achievements, and discover new games to play. Despite some concerns during the beta period, Game Center is supported on second-gen iPod touches and later, as well as the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4.

The update also includes a number of bug fixes, including a fix for iPhone 4 proximity sensor issues, Nike+iPod, and Bluetooth connectivity. In addition, it addresses widespread issues with slow performance of iOS 4 on the iPhone 3G, which recent limited testing by Lifehacker (using the iOS 4.1 GM release) demonstrated.

To update to iOS 4.1, you'll need to plug your 3G or later iPhone or second-gen or later iPod touch to a computer running iTunes, and click on "Check for Update." Apple's servers are apparently getting hammered, as some colleagues in the Orbiting HQ are getting an error message. 

Keep checking back for our look at the new iPods as well as an in-depth look at some of the new features of iOS 4.1.

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Premier Chat 006: Kyle Wiens, cofounder of iFixit

Announcing another in our series of subscriber-only features: a live, moderated webchat with Kyle Wiens. Kyle is the cofounder of the extremely popular gadget repair site iFixit. iFixit started out providing tear-down guides, tools, and replacement parts for Apple products, but has since branched out to all manner of gadgets, from phones to video game consoles (read our profile of the company). iFixit's primary mission is to make the world a cleaner and better place by reducing gadget waste through educational tools like free and open repair guides in addition to providing access to hard-to-find tools and parts.

This live chat is only available to Ars Premier subscribers and begins at 1pm CDT on Wednesday, September 8 (see it in your own timezone). The discussion will center on iFixit's mission of educating individuals on repairing their gadgets (rather than tossing them) and their adventures in dissecting the latest gadgetry.

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Google search becomes psychic with dynamic results, predictions

Just when you thought Google's services couldn't get more up-to-the-minute, the company has announced big changes to the way its search offerings work. No longer will users have to type out an entire query and click the "Search" button when they're finished?instead, the page will dynamically begin displaying a page with results the second you start typing.

"When you enter a query, there's a physical speed for typing, and when selecting a result, there's a physical speed for thinking," Google VP of Search Marissa Mayer said during a media event on Wednesday. "Is it possible to optimize search even more? We think it's possible to have a system for a user to enter a query with a lot of feedback and search even faster."

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With Kinect set to launch in North America on November 4, Microsoft has announced a bundle that will see the controller-free device bundled with an Xbox 360 and a game. The bundle will be available at launch and will cost $399.

In addition to the Kinect hardware, you'll get a shiny new 250GB 360 slim and a copy of Kinect Adventures. With the 250GB 360 model retailing at $300 and Kinect soon to be available for $150, the bundle offers up modest savings for those buying their first 360. It might also be a good option for those who have an older 360 model and are looking to upgrade. Of course, it's not the only option available, as Microsoft has already previously announced a 4GB 360/Kinect bundle that will cost $299.

When Kinect launches later this year, a total of 15 games will be available, including Kinect Sports, Kinectimals, and Harmonix's Dance Central. If you don't feel like waiting for your motion controls, the PlayStation Move will be available later this month.

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Amie Street gobbled by Amazon, morphs into new Songza

Amazon has bought AmieStreet.com, the indie music site that became known for starting its song prices at zero and increasing them with each download. Amie Street, Inc. (which remains independent) said that it plans to shift its focus onto its own social music streaming service, Songza.com.

Amie Street launched in July 2006 as a bit player in the online music scene. At that time, it was one of the only services that offered DRM-free MP3s, and the pricing structure was very attractive to those looking to explore new music. Songs started out free, but as more and more people bought a particular song, the price would go up a few cents, with a cap of 99¢ per download.

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Batman: the Brave and the Bold Wii is a lighter Dark Knight

Batman is an always an interesting character, but the most recent takes on the Caped Crusader have been almost oppressively dark. Go back and read the comics that took place before Year One and you'll find a Batman that sometimes smiles, is much more at peace with himself, and gets the job done with a sort of sly humor. That Batman is on full display in this Wii game, an adaptation of the titular cartoon.

The game is rendered in a beautiful hand-drawn animation style, with bright colors, interesting camera angles, and above all, a sense of fun. This may be aimed squarely at younger gamers, but adults are going to find much to like.

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Extreme X-rays may be signature of lame black hole

Last summer, we reported on an extremely bright object that may have been an intermediate mass black hole. The existence of black holes this size has been hotly debated, in part because we've never observed one. The object, 2XMM J011028.1-460421 or (more conveniently) HLX-1, is a source of ultraluminous X-rays near the spiral galaxy ESO 243-49. Newly reported results, appearing in an upcoming edition of The Astrophysical Journal, confirm that HLX-1 is over 100 times brighter than typical objects in its class, and a factor of 10 times more luminous than its nearest peer.

The prior work could not conclusively rule out the possibility that the X-rays were produced by a foreground star or background galaxy. With new observations made using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile, the researchers were able to obtain an optical spectrum of HLX-1.  With this spectrum, it was possible to calculate a precise distance between HLX-1 and Earth. 

Using some more advanced techniques, it was possible to separate the light from HLX-1 and the light generated by ESO 243-49. The analysis proved that HLX-1 is indeed part of ESO 243-49, and not one of the alternatives, like a supermassive black hole in the center of a distant galaxy, or a source in our own galaxy. Given its location, the previous brightness calculations are correct. 

While still not conclusive, these new findings strengthen the case that HLX-1 is an intermediate mass black hole. According to Sean Farrell, one of the authors, "This [the result] is very difficult to explain without the presence of an intermediate mass black hole of between ~500 and 10,000 times the mass of the Sun. HLX-1 is therefore (so far!) weathering the scrutiny of the international astronomy community." The team has secured time on the Hubble Space Telescope to take the highest resolution images of the host galaxy to date in the hopes of learning more about this intriguing object.

The Astrophysical Journal, 2010. DOI: upcoming

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