Development

Textbooks aren't a terribly sexy topic, but give it to Apple for trying to make it sexy.

Yes, today Apple officially rolled out an upgraded 2.0 version of its iBooks app that now supports interactive textbooks while also releasing a free Mac application, iBook Author, that lets people create electronic textbooks on their computers.

Seems clear enough, right? Apple jumps headlong into an entrenched, inefficient industry, threatening it with "digital destruction," or, to put it another way, textbook go boom.

But the truth is, the announcements stirred up more questions than they answered. So with that … Read more

According to a recent study, 19 percent of you have lost your smartphone due to a fatal meeting with the toilet. Putting aside the disturbing fact that some people can't part with their phone for a precious few moments, wouldn't it be nice not to worry about your mobile device, should it take a tumble into the commode or any other body of water?

Well, it could happen, and even better, it could happen this year.

A company called HzO developed a nanofilm waterproof coating that can protect your electronics from the perils of water, but it's a bit different from some of the other solutions out there, such as NeverWet and Liquipel.

The difference is that HzO's WaterBlock is applied during the manufacturing stage instead of after, so it safeguards the insides of your phone, tablet, or MP3 player--and not just the outside.… Read more

Production on the high-resolution displays that will adorn Apple's next-generation tablet is ramping up in the months ahead of the device's official unveiling, according to a new report.

Taiwanese news site DigiTimes claims that Sharp and LG Display are set to churn out 6 million to 7 million 9.7-inch QXGA panels in the next two and a half months, bumping that number up to 10 million produced during the second quarter.

Meanwhile, Apple is said to be scaling back on the volume of iPad 2 displays it's ordering to 7 million to 8 million panels in … Read more

Mike Shaver already announced last year he was moving to Facebook after resigning as vice president of technical strategy for Firefox.

And now we know what he'll be doing there: engineering manager for Android app development.

Given the immense membership of Facebook, there are few mobile apps in the world that are as important as Facebook's. The company announced in December that Facebook has 800 million users.

Shaver tweeted on Friday, "This week I started as the eng mgr for Facebook's Android team. Doing cool stuff -- some probably obvious, some rather not. And hiring!" … Read more

Google doesn't reject apps from the Android Market just because they're ugly.

But that doesn't mean the company doesn't care--especially now that Matias Duarte has seized the spotlight as director of Android user experience. So, absent the banhammer, Google is trying gentler persuasion to get others besides itself to care about designs that look and work well in the Ice Cream Sandwich era.

For that reason, Google has released an Android design guide for ICS, aka Android 4.0. As my colleague Kent German observes, Google's accommodating ways up to this point have led to … Read more

LAS VEGAS--When Google first showed off Ice Cream Sandwich last year, the company promised that the update would unify the Android experience between tablets and smartphones.

And today at CES, Matias Duarte, Google's director of Android user experience, announced a further step in that direction.

While speaking with editors of The Verge, Duarte announced that Google has developed an Ice Cream Sandwich style guide for device manufactures and developers.

According to Android Developer Blog, the guide will be a place where developers can "learn about principles, building blocks, and patterns for creating world-class Android user interfaces." In … Read more

Owners of upcoming iPhone and iPads could enjoy a boost in graphics power 20 times greater than that offered by current models, according to enthusiast site AppleInsider.

Such a leap in power would come courtesy of new graphics processing units developed by U.K.-based Imagination Technologies, which builds the GPUs for Apple's mobile products.

Announced at CES on Tuesday, Imagination's new PowerVR Series6 GPU core chip family is touted as providing 20 times or more of the performance of the current generation.

As a result, "it enables Imagination's partners to deliver amazing user experiences in … Read more

Google updated its popular platform version chart this week, giving a current snapshot of the popularity of the various Android releases.

As expected, Gingerbread (Android 2.3x) leads the way with a combined 55.5 percent share of the market, followed by Froyo at 30.4 percent and 2-year-old Eclair at 8.5 percent. Trailing behind are Honeycomb (3.3 percent) and very marginal showings for Donut (version 1.6), Cupcake (version 1.5), and Ice Cream Sandwich (version 4).

The latest chart marks the first time we've seen Ice Cream Sandwich make an impact, even if it is … Read more

After investing a considerable amount of time and effort on the Android 4.0 user interface (UI), Google is taking steps to ensure that it remains a key component of devices.

Writing on the developer blog yesterday, Android Framework engineer Adam Powell outlined the new compatibility standard for the Holo theme first introduced in 3.0 Honeycomb.

Going forward, devices running Ice Cream Sandwich with official access to the Android Market will offer the Holo themes as they were initially created. So in other words, developers will have a standard set of UI elements to work with, ultimately resulting in … Read more