Square Card Case released on iTunes App Store

Square, the mobile payment company started by Twitter's Jack Dorsey, has released their new Square Card Case app, which will make customers' purchases much easier (assuming that the merchant being paid has joined the Square ecosystem).

Their site lists the process like so:

1.  Open a tab - Next time you visit your favorite local spot, open the Card Case app on your phone and start a tab.

2. Say your name - When it's time to pay, just say your name. The tab you opened will show up on the register to finalize the sale.

3. Enjoy - You’re good to go. A digital receipt is automatically sent to you, with the option to tip at your leisure.

The app has been beautifully designed, and apparently also incorporates the functionality of the original Square app, which allows you to be the merchant and take payments from others yourself via their free credit card reader, which plugs into the mobile device's headphone jack.

Square Card Case [iTunes]

Evernote Update for iOS Brings Rich Text Support

Evernote blog:

There are updates and then there are UPDATES. Our users are not shy about letting us know what they want, so we get incredibly excited to release an update that we know will make a lot of people very happy. I have four words: iOS rich text support. I have two more words: shared notebooks. But that’s not all. We’ve also added passcode lock, a redesigned new note screen, a completely new iPad interface, and much more.

Rich text formatting is a welcome change, and I like the idea of the passcode lock for people who use Evernote to save sensitive information.

Evernote Blog | The Big Evernote for iOS Update

What Comes After Reading on the iPad

I'm over a week late on reading this, but Khoi Vinh wrote a thoughtful analysis on the future role iPads (and other tablets) may play in our lives:

Traditional publishers are pouring millions into establishing a beachhead on tablets and e-readers, perhaps with good reason. But the intense competition and experimentation (much of it misguided) is almost assuredly unsustainable; almost all of the content apps that we see today will be gone within a few years, I predict, or they will be supplanted by browser-driven editions as their native iOS or Android apps prove too expensive and impractical to maintain.

What’s more, all of these efforts conform to a familiar pattern: at the start of nearly every technological shift, legacy brands manage to command a disproportionate amount of attention as they attempt to stake their holds in the new space, but almost always find themselves unable to sustain that attention through genuine innovation. Ultimately, it’s the pure play companies that realize the medium’s true potential.

Full post here:

Subtraction | What Comes After Reading on the iPad

Evernote Acquires Skitch

The guys over at Evernote have purchased Skitch, a popular image-annotation app for Mac. They plan on not only incorporating the technology into their own, but also expanding its userbase beyond the desktop by releasing Android and iOS versions of the app.

I feel pretty positively about the acquisition overall, but sometimes I wonder if Evernote is becoming a bit too bloated for its own good. Anyway, you can check out each company's view on the deal at their respective blogs:

Evernote Blog | Evernote Acquires Skitch!

Skitch Blog | Huge! Skitch is acquired by Evernote

Tablet Design

I've said many times that today's non-Apple tablets have been taking a lot of inspiration (and I do mean a LOT) from the iPad, and this image is the proof:

via Gruber

Baby Update: It's a Boy!

My wife--who is now 20 weeks along--had her 2nd ultrasound done last Friday, and although the baby seemed unwilling to cooperate with us at first, we finally determined that we're going to have a son! For some reason my instincts told me we'd be having a daughter, but my wife and the other ladies in her family all predicted otherwise, even her 5-year-old sister. Guess their 6th-sense trumps mine... [edit: my sister would like to make it known that she also predicted a boy. Carry on.]

We had no real preference one way or the other and are simply happy to know that the baby is apparently healthy so far. We have his name picked out already but we are still keeping it under wraps for the time being. The due date at this point is December 27th, so we may end up having a pretty awesome Christmas present :)

To save him some future embarrassment, I won't post the ultrasound proving that he's a boy, but I did find it hilarious that they labeled the photo "Boy Parts" with an arrow pointing right to the proof in case there was any doubt.

Shifty Jelly: Amazon's App Store is 'Rotten'

Shifty Jelly, developer of the easy-on-the-eyes podcast app Pocket Casts, has posted about their experience with the Amazon App Store:

Amazon’s biggest feature by far, has been their Free App Of The Day promotion. Publicly their terms say that they pay developers 20% of the asking price of an app, even when they give it away free. To both consumers and naive developers alike, this seems like a big chance to make something rare in the Android world: real money. But here’s the dirty secret Amazon don’t want you to know, they don’t pay developers a single cent

Head over to their blog for the full story.

Shifty Jelly | Amazon App Store: Rotten to the Core

John Gruber: On Succeeding Steve Jobs

Gruber posted a piece detailing his views on who may succeed Steve Jobs, should Jobs ever decide to step down as CEO of Apple.

A new Apple CEO would need credibility and the ability to instantly instill confidence with two highly disparate groups: Apple’s rank-and-file employees, and Wall Street. The only candidates who could satisfy both factions, to any degree, already work at Apple. Name one outsider who’d be accepted both inside the company and on Wall Street. I can’t. Not one.

I'm actually a bit surprised by some of the suggestions for outside successors that have apparently been made by others, such as Steve Wozniak or Guy Kawasaki  or Jack Dorsey. These seem like such obviously-bad choices, even to a guy like me who only follows this stuff as a hobby. Not that I have anything against those people; Jack Dorsey has certainly proven that he can create a quality product (such as Twitter and Square) but to suggest that he could just come in and take over as CEO of Apple is a bit ludicrous.

Gruber's top choice, Tim Cook, already seemed to be groomed for the position long ago in my opinion. I would have thought it readily apparent to anyone else who watches Apple affairs too, but the article that Gruber is responding to here would seem to indicate otherwise.

Daring Fireball | On Succeeding Steve Jobs

Google+ for iPhone Now Available

I was wondering how long it would take to release something like this. Features include Circles and Huddle (which is basically group chat for people in your Circles).

Google+ [App Store]

Shawn Blanc: Reading on the iPad

Thanks to John Gruber and Marco Arment, I came across this article by Shawn Blanc where he discusses his views on his experience with (and the problem of) reading articles, both magazine- and newspaper-based, on the iPad.

And so — perhaps intentionally, or perhaps unintentionally — digital magazines that replicate their printed versions are, in some ways, feeding on the mindset that printed content has a higher value and novelty than digital content does.

They replicate their printed magazines in digital format because they are trying to convey some of that perceived quality and value that historically comes with the printed page. The reader may not be holding a piece of paper, but at least they’re looking at what would be the printed page through the window of their screen.

Unfortunately, replicating print onto a digital format doesn’t best serve the problems of great user experience, sharing through social media, and taking advantage of the rich media possibilities our iPads provide. It does, however, appease the publisher’s need to convey value with their content.

It's a great read and I agree with much of what he's saying here. He acknowledges that he doesn't have a perfect solution for the content publishers because it's obviously a difficult problem to solve, but does put forth a few good ideas. I also really like this analogy:

Apps like Instapaper and Reeder offer more of a “reading environment” (like a library); Wired and The New Yorker are more like an amusement park with words. One isn’t better or worse than the other, but people who like to read a lot certainly don’t spend the majority of their reading time at a noisy amusement park.

Shawn Blanc | Reading on the iPad