Engadget's top posts for 2012

So, are sugar plum fairies dancing in your head yet? Us neither, so how about those always-popular year-end lists? It's time to re-raise a toast to that tradition here at Engadget with a look at the top articles over the last 12 months as voted on by you, dear readers. If you're drawing a blank about any such ballot-casting, you did it with each duly noted click -- meaning that, Kumbaya-style, our list is also your list. Overall, 2012 was a red-letter year at Engadget as we unveiled a snappy fresh look (literally and visually), changed to a new commenting system, added the poshly accented Eurocast and generally kicked butt with more features, liveblogs and scoops than ever -- all of which is reflected in (woot!) our largest all-time yearly readership. After a couple of years off, we're re-booting the top yearly post tradition, so without further ado, here's a list of the articles that brought the biggest page-view ruckus in 2012.

Top 20 most trafficked posts of 2012, in order:

1. Apple's next-generation iPad liveblog
2. Apple's next-generation iPhone liveblog
3. Apple's 2012 WWDC liveblog
4. Apple's iPad mini liveblog
5. Live from Amazon's Santa Monica press conference
6. Live from Apple's education event
7. Samsung's Mobile Unpacked liveblog
8. Microsoft's major announcement liveblog
9. Live from Microsoft's Windows 8 press event at Mobile World Congress 2012
10. Google's I/O keynote 2012 liveblog
11. Live from Microsoft's 'sneak peek' at Windows Phone
12. Engadget Live: 'Ask me anything' Q&A with Nokia CEO Stephen Elop
13. Live from Microsoft's E3 2012 keynote
14. The Windows Phone 8 event liveblog
15. Live from the HTC press conference at MWC 2012
16. Live from Blackberry Jam Americas 2012
17. Live from Samsung Unpacked at IFA 2012
18. Live from the Nokia press conference at MWC 2012
19. Nexus 7 review: the best $200 tablet you can buy
20. iPhone 5 review

15,514 - total number of posts for 2012
1,039 - number of hands-on posts
246 - number of Engadget reviews
48 - number of liveblogs
10 - number of Engadget shows

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Apple, Samsung, Microsoft, HTC, Nokia, Google, Amazon, RIM

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/12/31/engadgets-top-posts-for-2012/

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Eversense smartphone controlled thermostat uses GPS to know when to change temps

We’ve been seeing quite a few WiFi controlled thermostats this year. I’m still using the Venstar ColorTouch thermostat which I installed this past summer. It does everything I need a thermostat to do including remote control via a smartphone or tablet. But the Eversense thermostat from Allure Energy takes things to another level. It uses [...]

Source: http://the-gadgeteer.com/2012/12/29/eversense-smartphone-controlled-thermostat-uses-gps-to-know-when-to-change-temps/

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iMore hall of fame: Apple and Mobile Safari

When Steve Jobs introduced the original iPhone on the Macworld stage in 2007, he teased it as a revolutionary phone, a widescreen iPod, and a breakthrough internet communicator. Back then, many people were excited about the idea of an Apple phone. In hindsight, the phone app turned out to be one of the least exciting things about the iPhone. Part of that is because we had mobile phones before. From flips to candybars to phone apps on Palm and BlackBerry devices, making phone calls from even a wide-screen, multitouch iPod was nice, beautiful even, but not really revolutionary.

Mobile Safari was, however, an absolute breakthrough.

At the time Palm had Blazer, BlackBerry had their browser, and Windows Mobile had Pocket IE, and all of them stank. They couldn't render HTML properly. They couldn't render CSS properly. And JavaScript? Forget about it. Third party browsers were better, sometimes via proxy, sometimes by trying to implement their own rendering engines. But they still stank.

Safari on the iPhone changed all that. It didn't support Sun's Java, Adobe's Flash, Microsoft's ActiveX or Silverlight, Real, or any plugin for that matter, but as history has proven, that was a smart choice. It enabled better performance, longer battery life, and greater stability and security for all the native web technology Safari did support. Apple also created a new way to interact with the web, part of the overall multitouch interface in general, that used gestures instead of key-presses, to scroll with a swipe, to zoom with a pinch, to link with a tap. Apple made the mobile web usable.

It was so usable, so good, that it allowed Steve Jobs to take the WWDC stage just a few months later and announce Mobile Safari as the first (and only at the time) development platform for the iPhone, and web 2.0 + AJAX apps as first (and only at the time) apps. It wasn't anywhere nearly as "sweet" a solution as Jobs and Apple hoped or promised -- jailbreak app development continued, and Apple ended up releasing a proper, native SDK -- but it was powerful and flexible. It enabled a lot of phenomenal developers to make a lot of phenomenal software, from todo lists to social networks, utilities to games.

Apple even maintained a directory on Apple.com, showcasing the many web apps available for the platform, all made possible by Mobile Safari. (Last updated in December of 2010.)

The arrival of native apps in June of 2008 obliterated the short-term future of web apps, though some media properties still flirt with them. Apple has kept up Mobile Safari's development, however. They added Web.app so we could put web apps our Home screens, UIWebView so we could embed web pages and browsers in our apps, the Nitro JavaScript Engine so that even complex sites would still load fast, iCloud integration so all our web stuff is available everywhere, and they brought it to the iPad as well. UIWebView in particular, is used in a wide range of popular and needful apps, for good and for ill.

Mobile Safari's impact was so large, in fact, when the time came for Google to make both the original Android browser and Chrome, they went with WebKit. When Palm reinvented Blazer for webOS, they went with WebKit. When BlackBerry bought a new browser, they bought the WebKit-based Torch. When Microsoft brought mobile Internet Explorer out of the dark ages... well, they stuck with Spyglass but they were forced to up their previously stagnant game to compete with WebKit.

In a very real way, it changed the face of both the web and mobile, two of the most important technologies of the last decade. For all of those reasons, and in thanks to the the WebKit team, Safari team, and the developers at Apple who made it such an outstanding experience on the iPhone, it's fitting that the first ever inductee into iMore's hall of fame is one of the first, and still one of the most important apps in the history of iOS, and one crafted by the company that created the platform -- Mobile Safari.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/qgFoyJaQnd8/story01.htm

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First Firefox 6 build next week, Firefox 7 by May, and aurora channel introduced

Mozilla's Engineering Project Manager, Christian Legnitto, has detailed the release schedule for Firefox 5, 6 and 7. If all goes to plan, Firefox 6.0a1 will be released next week, April 12, and Firefox 7.0a1 in the middle of May. The final build of Firefox 5 should be released on June 21, exactly three months after the release of Firefox 4.

Along with the faster 6-week release cadence, Firefox's new Chrome-like release channels have also been given names and anticipated update frequencies. The most notable change is the introduction of a new alpha channel -- which is analogous to Chrome Canary -- that will be called 'aurora' and will update nightly. Aurora will be where fixes and features are tested, and either approved for Beta, or backed out to Central. Aurora will have a new icon, too.

The Nightly (mozilla-central) channel will remain unchanged in name and frequency, but it will gain a new 'nightly icon.' The Beta (mozilla-beta) channel will remain as-is, with new builds rolling out weekly. The Release (mozilla-release) channel will also remain as-is, with security and stability updates coming every 6 to 12 weeks.

It should be noted that the names (including 'aurora') are not necessarily final, but it's unlikely that they'll change. We're also awaiting the arrival of the new 'channel switching' technology, which should arrive in the next few days -- in time for the release of Firefox 6 aurora!

First Firefox 6 build next week, Firefox 7 by May, and aurora channel introduced originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 07 Apr 2011 05:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/07/first-firefox-6-build-next-week-firefox-7-by-may-and-aurora-ch/

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Apple orders iCab iOS browser to cripple JavaScript modules

The developer of iCab Mobile, a feature-rich alternative to the Safari Web browser on iPad and iPhone, has been ordered by Apple to remove its ability to download and install JavaScript modules.

Presumably it's not the fact that iCab can execute JavaScript that's causing Apple to apoplectically puff and splutter, but rather its ability to download modules. Both Apple and Google frown upon apps that contain market-like functionality, and someone at Apple probably thought that iCab's JavaScript modules looked like a bit too much like discrete apps.

Alexander Clauss, iCab's developer, has rather a lot to say on the matter. "Maybe if I would have called the modules 'smart bookmarks' and would have made installing them much more complicated, Apple would have never asked to remove the ability to download them from the internet. The great user experience of installing modules has probably created a suspicion that these modules are more than just a piece of JavaScript code. From a pure technical point of view, if Apple does not allow to download modules (JavaScript code), Apple would also have to disallow to load web pages in general, because these do also contain JavaScript code."

In conclusion, to circumvent Apple's draconian decree, iCab Mobile now simply comes bundled with some 20 JavaScript modules. The ability to download modules made by third-party developers has been disabled, however -- but even then, Clauss says that you can simply contact him and ask for your module to be bundled with the next version of iCab.

Download iCab Mobile for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch ($1.99)

Apple orders iCab iOS browser to cripple JavaScript modules originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 08 Apr 2011 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/08/apple-orders-icab-ios-browser-to-cripple-javascript-modules/

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China has insatiable appetite for iPad mini

Looks like the iPad mini is proving as popular in Hong Kong and China as it'd been in western markets. Yup, despite the lack of a Retina display, and complaints that it's not as "cheap" as a deeply subsidized Google or Amazon tablet, Apple can't keep them on the shelves. John Paczkowski of AllThingsD cites retail checks by Topeka's Brian White, which show an "insatiable" demand:

Nearly all models of the diminutive iPad sold out in Hong Kong and China last week, with sources at Apple?s three retail stores in Hong Kong and eight in China reporting stock-outs or significantly constrained supply.

Once again, this shows Apple prioritizing lightness and battery life over display technology was the right choice, and that the value proposition isn't a factor unless lowest-possible-price is the primary feature as customer is looking for. It also shows that greater China persists as a major, and likely still growing market for Apple.

Now the question becomes, how much will the iPad mini cannibalize full-sized iPad sales, the way full-sized iPad sales have cannibalized some Mac sales, and how much of that will be offset by this type of growth, and by cannibalization of non-Apple computing devices?

Source: AllThingsD

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/Q6-IZFLPh0o/story01.htm

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TripAdvisor app for Windows Phone 7 now available

TripAdvisor, the popular travel planning tool, has just launched an app for Windows Phone 7. Just like the mobile website, the app allows you to search for anything travel-related -- from hotels and flights to restaurants and points-of-interest to visit once you reach your destination.

Geolocation is supported, which allows TripAdvisor to quickly locate places nearby. But while that's a neat feature, it's also a bit of a downer -- because, really, it's about the only feature TripAdvisor for WP7 brings to the table that its mobile Web app doesn't already offer (its browser-based geolocation doesn't work with WP7 at the moment).

While it's nice to see Windows Phone 7 users getting some big-name apps, it'd be even nicer if we saw some packing a bit more swagger.

Still, TripAdvisor for WP7 might just be worth installing on your device if you're frequently on the go -- at least until a better browser arrives with the Mango update.

Gallery: TripAdvisor for Windows Phone 7

TripAdvisor app for Windows Phone 7 now available originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 05 Apr 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/05/tripadvisor-app-for-windows-phone-7-now-available/

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Watch an RC Car Fly Through a Flaming Hydrogen Balloon Explosion

The best things in life are simple pleasures. Often they involve fire, and occasionally an RC car, flammable gas and/or slow motion. This one includes all of the above. While ostensibly done for some manner of "SCIENCE!" this little stunt seems to mostly be about looking pretty sweet and it pulls that off just fine. Could there be more context? Sure. Does there need to be? Nope. [Reddit] More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/YBPt2xSCP10/watch-an-rc-car-fly-through-a-flaming-hydrogen-balloon-explosion

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Hands-on with Jolla's Sailfish OS (video)

We recently had the chance to spend time with David Greaves and Vesa-Matti Hartikainen of Jolla and take Sailfish OS for a spin. As you might recall, this open source mobile OS builds upon Mer (a fork of MeeGo that includes Qt) and uses the Nemo framework with a custom UI. Like any decent Linux-based OS, it supports both ARM and x86 devices. The company is also behind the Sailfish SDK which is in the process of being finalized but is still open to developer feedback (the source code is available). After seeing Jolla's various demo videos and noting some UI similarities with MeeGo (swipes) and, strangely, with BB10 (peek gestures), we were eager to experience Sailfish OS for ourselves.

If you're wondering why the mobile OS is usually shown running on Nokia's N950 developer handset, that's because Jolla employs many ex-MeeGo engineers, so the OMAP-based phone was a natural fit. We were first given a walkthrough of Sailfish OS, then allowed to play with it. Many apps are still being worked on and some are still off-limits (we got in trouble for launching the camera), but what we saw was pretty solid. Take a look at the gallery below, then hit the break for our hands-on video and first impressions.

Gallery: Hands-on with Jolla's Sailfish OS

Continue reading Hands-on with Jolla's Sailfish OS (video)

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Mobile, Nokia

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/Q03Omk2xLU8/

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Zen Coding high-speed HTML shorthand plug-in updated

Zen Coding made quite a splash when we first covered it almost a year ago. For those who aren't familiar, Zen is a fantastic form of shorthand for quickly hand-coding HTML. And today, a new version is out!

Here are some of the goodies version 0.7 brings to the party:

• Text nodes: Writing something like a[href=/]{Click here} now works, and puts "Click here" within the link.
• New actions added: Increment/decrement number under cursor, evaluate math expressions, and more.
• Wrap with Abbreviation was upgraded.

There are several other improvements but they're all rather technical. If you use Zen Coding (or are intrigued by the concept) go ahead and read the release notes for this new version.

Zen Coding has official implementations for a ton of editors, including TextMate, Apatana, Coda, E2, Komodo, Notepad++, PSPad, and more. It also has unofficial builds for Vim, UltraEdit, Visual Studio and more.

If you want to play with Zen Coding without installing it, you can use the online demo to see some of its magic in action.

Zen Coding high-speed HTML shorthand plug-in updated originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 15 Mar 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/15/zen-coding-high-speed-html-shorthand-plug-in-updated/

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You can now rent Adobe Photoshop for $35 per month, CS 5.5 available soon

Rejoice! No longer will you have to fork over $700 for a Photoshop CS5 license! Adobe has unveiled a new subscription scheme where you can rent the entire Creative Suite, or individual packages, by the month, or for an entire year.

Adobe Photoshop can be yours for $35 per month if you agree to rent it for 12 months, or $49 per month if you require its services for a shorter period. Dreamweaver can be had for even cheaper, at just $19 per month. The entire Master Collection is still rather expensive, though, at $125 per month.

Today, Adobe also ushered in the release of Creative Suite 5.5, and simultaneously upped its release cycle from 18 months to 24 months. This means, if you rent Photoshop for two years, it's actually the same cost as buying it outright. There's no rent-to-own option, though -- so you wouldn't have access to the cheaper upgrade price once Creative Suite 6 rolls around next year. Still, if you need access to Photoshop, After Effects or Premiere for a one-time project, the new rental scheme could be exactly what you're looking for.

In other news, Adobe has announced that it will be launching three rather exciting iPad apps that work in conjunction with Photoshop: Eazel, Nav, and Color Lava. Eazel lets you five-finger paint on your iPad, and export the result into Photoshop; Nav acts as some kind of workspace, brush and menu extension, and the hopefully named Color Lava is a paint mixing palette. The apps are expected to appear in the App Store in the next 30 days.

You can now rent Adobe Photoshop for $35 per month, CS 5.5 available soon originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 11 Apr 2011 06:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/11/you-can-now-rent-adobe-photoshop-for-29-per-month/

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Amazon Appstore for Android Test Drive hands on: surprisingly cool, but still US-only

When Amazon Appstore for Android launched last week, one of its primary features -- Test Drive -- was disabled just a few minutes after it opened. With no try-before-you-buy, no refund process, and 1-Click purchasing ready to strike at any moment, this caused some problems. Anyway, don't despair: Test Drive is now enabled.

Before you get your hopes up, Test Drive doesn't work with every app. The IMDb app works fine -- you can even watch movie trailers on it! -- but the Angry Birds games are sadly not enabled. Some games work surprisingly well, though, like Bubble Buster. There's very little latency, and the framerate is really rather good. The Test Drive experience is so true to life that you even get ads; how cool is that?

Gallery: Amazon Appstore for Android Test Drive

Continue reading Amazon Appstore for Android Test Drive hands on: surprisingly cool, but still US-only

Amazon Appstore for Android Test Drive hands on: surprisingly cool, but still US-only originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 28 Mar 2011 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/28/amazon-appstore-for-android-test-drive-hands-on-surprisingly-co/

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China Doubles Down on Real-Name Web Registration

The Great Firewall of China might start requiring ID for admittance. On Monday, China's National People's Congress began discussing a draft decision that would force Internet users to use their real names in order to register for services. The draft decision is, depending on your perspective, a way to protect personal information online, or yet another move by China to restrict freedom of information.

Source: http://ectnews.com.feedsportal.com/c/34520/f/632000/s/26f41cb7/l/0L0Stechnewsworld0N0Crsstory0C769480Bhtml/story01.htm

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OUYA ships 1,200 developer consoles, opens dev portal

Begone, doubters. OUYA -- the Android-based game console that shattered about 16 Kickstarter records -- has shipped to developers. Some 1,200 of them have shipped to developers. And it's important to stress that these are for developers. (Did we mention anything about developers here? Because we really should.) As you can see in the video above -- and can the same people who "boxed" a device be the ones to do an unboxing video? -- these are limited-edition devices, with transparent plastic and bugs and other things that are going to be completely reworked before production units ship in the spring.

What this milestone represents, of course, is a major step forward for a project funded by regular folks -- you and me -- through Kickstarter, meaning it's kind of a crapshoot as to what we'll actually get, when we'll get it, and how good it'll be when it hits our doorstep. (And full disclosure here: Android Central backed OUYA at the $1,337 level, so we've got one of these dev units on the way.) There won't be any apps on this dev version, but the egg has to come before the chicken. Or maybe it's the other way around.

In other news, OUYA has fired up its developer portal, where you can download the developer kit, upload games and get things ready for launch in a few months. Huzzah!

More: OUYA; OUYA Developer Portal

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/HyjpqsktIJc/story01.htm

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