David Smith’s InstaBackup app looks like a nice way to grab all your hipstery, filter-laden photos before Facebook sells them to China for a profit.
Year: 2012
RIM: Android Piracy Issues a ‘Cesspool’
Facebook Buys Instagram
Facebook announced today that it has reached an agreement to acquire Instagram, a fun, popular photo-sharing app for mobile devices.
The total consideration for San Francisco-based Instagram is approximately $1 billion in a combination of cash and shares of Facebook. The transaction, which is subject to customary closing conditions, is expected to close later this quarter.
‘Bartending: Memoirs of an Apple Genius’ on Sale Now!
Everything was ready, so I figured I’d launch the book a few days early. (Members have had access since Thursday.)
Thanks to everyone who helped make this project possible. Seriously, I can’t believe this thing is out the door. I sincerely hope you guys enjoy it.
You can download it for your Kindle here, or purchase an iBooks.app-compatible ePub here.
Marco, on Depositing Checks From iOS
Drafts: Capture and Share
Drafts is a new iPhone app that makes capturing and sharing text super easy and super fast.
I like to think of it Launch Center for words. It’s the smartest, most flexible note app I’ve used yet on iOS.
It can send text to Twitter using iOS 5’s built-in account tools. Drafts can also send text directly to Tweetbot, opening the “New Tweet” sheet.
The handy word and character count is great for this usage.
With full Markdown support, I can write in the syntax I’m used to working in. I can preview my Markdown to make sure I didn’t miss an * and then copy it to the clipboard for use in another app or email it, all from within Drafts.
In beta testing, it quickly became my go-to application for just jotting stuff down. Since it saves recent drafts, it’s a great place to stash little notes throughout the day that don’t really belong anywhere else. With so many options to get things out of Drafts, I don’t worry about data lock-in.
Drafts will be available in the iOS App Store on the 9th for just a buck. It’s one of those apps I wonder how I lived without it for so long.
Tweetbot Gains iCloud Sync
The update uses iCloud to sync Timelines, DMs and mute filters.
Now, where’s that Mac app?
Chinese Teen Sells Kidney to Buy iPhone and iPad
Backing up Gmail
Google Wants to Deserve ‘Great Love’
We have always wanted Google to be a company that is deserving of great love. But we recognize this is an ambitious goal because most large companies are not well-loved, or even seemingly set up with that in mind. We’re lucky to have a very direct relationship with our users, which creates a strong incentive for us to do the right thing. For every magic moment we create—like the ability to drop a photo into Google and search by image—we have a very happy user. And when our products don’t work or we make mistakes, it’s easy for users to go elsewhere because our competition is only a click away.
He’s right about that last bit, for sure.
Smarter Tools
Andrew S. Allen, the interaction designer behind Paper, in an interview with Joost van der Ree:
We made the tools smarter so you don’t have to have settings. Like our writing tool, you don’t have to adjust it, it makes your handwriting look good. It’s funny how many responses we’ve got from people who haven’t sketched in 15 years and it makes them feel like they can draw. To me that’s the promise of technology used right, when you enable people to really do things that they’re proud of.
A Million News Users in 12 Hours
Mike Krieger, co-founder of Instagram:
On Tuesday we launched Instagram for Android, and it’s had a fantastic response so far. The last few weeks (on the infrastructure side) have been all about capacity planning and preparation to get everything in place, but on launch day itself the challenge is to find problems quickly, get to the bottom of them, and roll out fixes ASAP. Here are some tools & techniques we used to tackle problems as they arose.
I love these behind-the-scenes posts.