Merry Christmas Eve: Evernote for iPhone gets a major update

Evernote for iPhone [Free, iTunes Link] has received a major update to version 3.2.0, which went live late this evening in the App Store and should be arriving in App Store updates soon. According to our contacts at Evernote, the new app is much faster, with speed improvements in launching, searching, syncing, creating new notes, and browsing. 

As TUAW heard during a November interview with Phil Libin, CEO of Evernote, the updated app provides local caching and searching. Any note that is created or viewed on the iPhone is cached locally for viewing and searching, even when offline. Premium users can choose to have any or all of the notebooks they’ve created fully downloaded to their devices, once again enabling offline usability. Rich text notes can be converted to plain text for editing, and a copy of the original note is moved into the trash for future recovery.

Other new features include:

• In-app purchase of premium accounts
• A new “sync” tab
• Ability to search while syncing
• Additional languages
• A number of bug fixes and improvements to the app

A quick tour by the App Store on my iPhone this evening showed that the update was not yet available, but I was able to download the new version. For all Evernote users, this is a nice early Christmas present.

How To Extend Your Chrome Browser

It’s been shown that the availability of applications makes or breaks operating systems. Similarly, it’s functions that make or break browsers. But as our computing experiences becomes more and more complex, it becomes impossible for any one browser to have it all. That’s where plugins and extentions become vital.

The problem, however, is always the same: should we prefer security of functionality? Google Chrome (and hence the Chromium project) had initially opted for a limited functionality browser with high security. The idea (as well as the fresh interface) encountered a mild success. It was a great victory for Google in this highly competetive market, but the whole projet bumped on a large share of the market–the power users–who are among the most inclined to try out new browsers and switch. Why? Because the majority of these “power users” have gotten used to extensions.

The extention system is Firefox’s greatest strength, and that for a cause! I use Firefox daily, and it’s the extentions, not the browser, that have me addicted. There are extentions for the spead-freaks, extentions for the lazy, extentions for the news-addicts, extentions for minimalist-lovers, extensions to enhance productivity, etc. Whoever you are, there is a (therorectical) customized Firefox for you. Chrome, however, with it’s simplified interface, was not only looked limited, but actually was less functional. Chrome may be faster than Firefox, but I’m still more efficient on the latter because I have various extentions that work in my stead (i.e. that check my emails, gather news from around the web, enhance webpages, etc.). Not Long ago, Google introduced themes for Chrome, making the browser slightly more personal, but still infinitely less configurable than Mozilla’s.

Of course, Google’s choice was not bad when they decided to build a simple, fast and secure browser instead of a bulky feature-complete one, but now they’re reaching a ceilingin user adoption. It’s very probable that the great majority of users would prefer Google Chrome over any other browser due to it’s simplicity. However, these users are not those who switch browsers, but rather those who don’t (think they) care. If the browser is to reach a wider audience, it must evolve.

Of course, the folks behind Chrome and Chromium are aware of that. Yesterday, Adam Barth posted an article about the security problem with plugins on the Chromium blog. His point is that there basically “two main security concerns: malicious extensions and “benign-but-buggy” extensions”. The first are essentially malware, but it is the second that’s truly dangerous. More extentions by thrid party developpers means more code. Google will lose control on the overall experience, but also over the code. Security threats will appear exponentially. Luckily, the same blog post gives us an idea of how these threats can be reduced (by clever restrictive policies and a good dose of hunting). I’d also like to add that exentions slow down the browser and often make the overall UI feel less consistent. If Chrome can bring us the power of plugins without losing it’s speed and overall security, It’ll land one step in front of it’s rivals.

You can download chrome here and the Chromium projects’ homepage can be found here. You can also get a preview several extensions for Google Chrome here.

WordPress and Tumblr show iPhone Tweetie and Twitterrific Not Just for Twitter Anymore

Tweetie 2 and Twitterrific 2 aren’t just two of the best Twitter clients for the iPhone, they’re two of the best mobile micro-blogging interfaces on the planet and now both WordPress and Tumblr are taking advantage of them — which is ridiculously awesome for iPhone users.

WordPress now lets you “Post and Read via Twitter API”, and they have a complete walkthrough posted on how to set it up.

We’ve enabled posting to and reading of WordPress.com blogs via the Twitter API. Any app that allows you to set a custom API URL will work. This project came out of our Quebec meetup and was developed by Team 55 (Andy, Terry, and Raphael).

Inspired by WordPress, Tumblr has also jumped on board:

The really cool thing – because our following models follow a lot of the same principles, we’ve been able to take advantage of a ton of native features:

• Retweeting = Reblogging
• Replying = Reblogging w/ commentary
• Favoriting = Liking
• “@david” = ”http://david.tumblr.com/”
• Conversations = Reblogs

So if you use Tweetie or Twitterrific, and WordPress or Tumblr, the API elves have given you an early present. Let us know how well it works for you.

[via @roustem]

RapidShare Partners With Warner Bros., Plans to Launch Movie Download Site

RapidShare.com, the controversial one-click file hoster, is working on a movie site with plans to eventually include paid downloads of major Hollywood blockbusters. The Switzerland-based company is testing the waters with a beta site dubbed RapidMoviesthat currently includes a few dozen trailers. Perhaps more remarkable than the test site itself is RapidShare’s first high-profile content partner: Warner Bros. supplied almost all of the trailers.

RapidShare has been enjoying a somewhat contentious relationship with the entertainment industry. The company is currently battling German music rights holders in court, and judges have so far sided with the music industry. The startup has been having more luck with video game companies and has been distributing game trailers and patches through a dedicated gaming portal called RapidGames. It’s now hoping other movie studios will eventually come around as well.

The company recently soft-launched RapidMovies without any announcement, and has been slowly adding German and English trailers to the site. Users must have a premium account to play the streams, but can download trailers for free like any other file hosted on RapidShare. A company spokesperson excused any kinks by stating that the site is really just part of an initial test phase. Warner Bros. didn’t respond to requests for comment about its plans for future cooperation with the one-click hoster.

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Apple Making Mobile Safari Web Apps Better, Faster, Stronger

iPhone web apps aren’t being left behind by Apple, despite the fact that the App Store has gone onto become such a huge success following its introduction in 2008. In fact, according to John Gruber at Daring Fireball, recent efforts on the Mac maker’s part show a real dedication to improving the platform’s web application experience.

In a lengthy post comparing developing using Cocoa Touch for the App Store vs. developing web applications, Gruber goes over the strengths and limitations of both. In the end, he reveals that a new web app framework would bring the experience of using web apps much closer to that of apps which reside natively on the iPhone. The new framework is apparently called PastryKit, and it’s an official Apple endeavor.

PastryKit brings three really important things to the table for web developers:

• Hides the address bar, without the need to create a home screen shortcut first, which currently allows that.
• Allows for static, fixed position toolbars that don’t scroll along with the rest of the page.
• Allows for scrolling momentum, which allows users to “fling” lengthy lists without causing scroll friction, the way web apps generally do now.

PastryKit has already been deployed in its iPhone User Guide web page, though you can only see the effects if you’re visiting the site on an iPhone. They are all JavaScript implementations, and so should be usable by any web developer. MacRumors points outthat performance issues attached to the new features could arise on older-generation iPhone models, since these are known to have trouble with JavaScript in mobile Safari.

There’s little doubt that Apple is keeping its eye on the mobile web space, which is poised to explode thanks to recent developments in web tech like HTML5, CSS and others. There are some things that the App Store is no doubt better for, including advanced 3-D games like the kind released by Gameloft, ngmoco and EA, but for other apps, an improved web interface could be just what the doctor ordered.

If Apple can get smaller developers who are creating apps with limited or light functionality to take their business to the web instead of routing through the App Store, it’ll be able to eliminate a lot of the static and chatter that currently gums up the review process and no doubt costs Cupertino a not-insignificant amount of overhead. It may lose revenue, too, but the more lucrative titles will likely remain as dedicated apps, being the aforementioned games from major publishers I mentioned above.