Most of us are paying our rent or mortgages today now that the clock has flipped over to November, but don’t let that big chunk of dough flying out of your bank account bring you down. There’s good news flying around the internet this fine day, including the resurrection of clipboard manager iClip, rumors of a native Gmail app for iOS and hey, GarageBand now works on your iPhone or iPod touch! Here’s all the news that’s fit to print for this Tuesday, November 1, 2011.
Thanks to the Mac App Store, there are many different options for users who want to enjoy the convenience of multiple clipboards. iClip was one of the best, even though its developer neglected the app during the transition from 10.5 Leopard to 10.6 Snow Leopard (where it still worked) and more recently to 10.7 Lion (where it finally broke). Thankfully, a new company called Irradiated Software has taken the ball and ran with it, releasing iClip 5.0 to the Mac App Store on Monday night at the limited time special promo price of only $9.99. So far the app is identical to the long-neglected version, with one major change: it now works flawlessly with both Snow Leopard and OS X Lion.
Here’s an interesting one that came out of nowhere: According to TechCrunch scribe MG Siegler (writing on his personal blog, ParisLemon.com), Google is about to unleash a native Gmail app for iOS. As Siegler points out, Google has a checkered history with buggy apps for Apple’s platform, but his sources claim the Gmail app is “pretty fantastic” and comes packing push notifications, which would certainly make it a worthwhile download. Apparently the app has already been submitted to Apple for review, so keep your fingers crossed...
Neither Amazon nor Google have yet to bring their respective cloud-based music services to iOS in the form of an official app, although both have Mobile Safari-friendly HMTL5 web versions available. That’s why Interactive Innovative Solutions chose to make their own apps, aMusic and gMusic, respectively. Unfortunately, according to AppleInsider, Amazon’s unofficial music player has been shown the exit sign by Apple’s minions, and the gMusic app may be next, with an update stuck in review for two weeks now. We’re still holding out for the real deal, but here’s hoping the developer can get potential legal issues sorted out and get back in the App Store.
Apple today announced that 15 more countries will be getting the iPhone 4S on November 11, with preorders beginning this Friday, November 4. The lucky international roulette winners for this round are Albania, Armenia, Bulgaria, El Salvador, Greece, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Malta, Montenegro, New Zealand, Panama, Poland, Portugal, Romania and South Korea. The iPhone 4S is currently available in 29 countries and will land in more than 70 by year’s end.
Ever feel the compulsion to rock some sweet jams while you’re on the go without an iPad or Mac to help make it happen? Apple feels your pain, which is why they have just released GarageBand 1.1, an update to the iOS app which is now universal for native use with the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. And that’s not all: The latest version also allows the creation of custom chords for Smart Instruments, support for 3/4 and 6/7 time signatures, new audio export quality settings for AAC and AIFF (Uncompressed) and plenty more enhancements you’re sure to love. Existing owners of the app can download the update free of charge, for everyone else it’s the same $4.99 price of entry in the App Store.
And for those of you playing the home game… October is over and there’s still no iTunes Match at this writing, with developers reporting their iTunes 10.5.1 betas expired today. O iTunes Match, iTunes Match! Wherefore art thou, iTunes Match…?
Follow this article’s author, J.R. Bookwalter on Twitter
