Apple improving 3D Flyover visuals in iOS 6 Maps

Personally I'd rather have more accurate (and abundant) search results than 3D flyovers. Why? Because when I want to find a restaurant in a new city, I don't care what the area looks like from a helicopter.

Mark Zuckerberg promises a native Android app, says betting on HTML5 for mobile was a 'mistake' | The Verge

The Verge, covering Mark Zuckerberg's recent appearance at TechCrunch Disrupt:

"We're betting completely on it," he said, referring to native apps. "Native is going to be the approach that we go with for iOS and Android." Much of the same infrastructure that Facebook built for iOS will be re-applied to Android, but as for an ETA for the app, Zuckerberg said "it will be ready when it's ready."

A native iOS app might create a better experience? What a revelation.

YouTube Blog: Introducing a new YouTube app for your iPhone and iPod touch

For all you diehard YouTube fans out there who can’t get enough YouTube on your mobile, we’ve got some great news: starting today, you can download the official YouTube app for iPhone and iPod touch from the App Store, bringing you more of the videos you love and more ways to share them with the people you care about.

The new app is built by YouTube engineers, to give our iPhone and iPod touch users the best mobile experience.

 As expected.

Apple Says It Has Fixed Server Bug That Led to Crashing Apps - Ina Fried - Mobile - AllThingsD

Ina Fried for All Things D with a statement from Apple:

“We had a temporary issue that began yesterday with a server that generated DRM code for some apps being downloaded.”

Well, everything is temporary.

“The issue has been rectified and we don’t expect it to occur again,” Apple said. Those who have an affected app can re-download it from the App Store.

TJ Draper's Thoughts about Podcasts

TJ Draper's thoughts on Apple's new Podcasts app:

As much as I like some of the interface elements, there are some strange things going on. For instance, in tile mode you can’t access the “Unplayed” area that shows only episodes that have not been played. Sure you can switch to list view, but this seems like a major oversight. What’s more, when in tile view, which is a nice, and beautiful view, you cannot see which podcasts have new and unplayed episodes. Again, an amazing and egregious oversight. This makes tile view beautiful, and completely non-functional.

iOS gamers will bathe in blood with Carmageddon’s release this summer

Peter Cohen:

A carnage-soaked racing game is going to make an appearance on iOS devices soon. Stainless Games has announced that their classic game Carmageddon is headed to iPhone, iPod touch and iPad this summer. What’s more, it’ll be free, at least initially.

Cool, but nothing can top Autoduel.

After Years Of Flirting, Facebook And Apple Set To Achieve Relationship Status In iOS 6 | TechCrunch

Deep iOS integration with Facebook is just about the only thing that might make me consider using it again.

Microsoft Office -- iPad, Android tablet version to launch in November

Jonathan Geller:

BGR has learned from a reliable source that Microsoft is currently planning to release the company’s full Office suite for not only Apple’s iPad, but for Android tablets as well. The company is targeting November of this year for both launches

The Android Lockdown

Something for you to try if the regular stories about Android phones that can’t be upgraded seem befuddling or ponderous: don’t think of Android as an operating system the way you think of Mac OS X, iOS, or Windows as an operating system.

Instead, think of it the way you think of your car’s engine.

Generally speaking, the Android-phone you’ve purchased is married to the version of Android it shipped with, just like your car is more or less married to its engine, which has been customized to some degree just for your car. If a better engine is developed and you want it in your old car, it’ll take a lot of work to make that happen, and most people won’t (and likely shouldn’t) try doing it themselves.

The companies shipping Android phones are just like the automobile manufacturers in this regard. They start with an Android base, customize it for the smartphone they’ve made, and send it out the door. It does the specific things they’ve determined it should do in the specific way they’ve decided it should do them, and that’s it. If there’s a problem they can’t get around fixing (Pinto), they reluctantly push an update (recall).

The idea that you might later want to update the OS sometime down the road isn’t the kind of thing that concerns them. Nobody should be surprised about this and in fact, it makes good business sense for the carriers and Android phone manufacturers. What better way to encourage you to buy a new phone than to make your old one obsolete (at least from the software perspective) after only several months?

You could argue that Apple does this too but there is a difference: we can still run the latest version of iOS on all of the iPhones currently sold by Apple, which includes the three-year old iPhone 3Gs.

Angry Birds in Space

Angry Birds in Space is awesome. To my surprise, it’s way more than just a bunch of new levels — it’s a whole new game. The game is set in space and Rovio has used the setting to great advantage. The gameplay is entirely new, with a different set of physics and rules for play, creating new kinds of challenges. The music and sound effects are fresh and perfectly dramatic.

Combined with the subtle details and enhancements for the Retina display, I’d say this is the game to get for your new iPad (3) … or any iOS device for that matter.

Use this link to buy it and I’ll get a small kickback which will help fund the purchase important studio upgrades like this coffee mug.

Zynga’s bid for Draw Something may top $200 million

GigaOm:

And Draw Something, which is adding more than 1 million users a day, is pulling in low six figures in revenue a day, (CEO Dan) Porter said, mostly from upgrades but also in-app purchases and advertising.

It’s things like this that make us realize we’re pretty much all in the wrong business.

Also my baby girl just got her second tooth.