Apple : Apple overturns German online sales ban on iPhone, iPad

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• Apple overturns German online sales ban on iPhone, iPad
• In Depth: The 10 most hated programs of all time
• Gary Marshall: Tablets are no longer just idiot toys
• New Apple iMac touchscreen tech outed in new patent

Apple overturns German online sales ban on iPhone, iPad Posted: Germany seems to be a hotbed for patent war activity at the moment with Apple now overturning an online sales ban on many of its 3G gadgets. Just this morning we reported on an injunction won by Motorola preventing Apple selling the iPad 2, iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 on it's official online shop due to its alleged infringement on a 3G patent. However, the wheels of justice move quickly in these matters and Apple has been able to strike down the injunction with haste. Moto being unreasonable? The Cupertino-based company says that the legal see-saw was able to occur due to Motorola Mobility's refusal (no doubt backed by its new friends at Google) to "reasonably" license the patent to Apple. An Apple spokeswoman told AllThingsD: "All iPad and iPhone models will be back on sale through Apple's online store in Germany shortly. "Apple appealed this ruling because Motorola repeatedly refuses to license this patent to Apple on reasonable terms, despite having declared it an industry standard patent seven years ago." Apple is now in the process of repopulating its store, but Motorola which initially filed for the injunction in December, will continue the fight for a reinstatement of the ban. Via: AllThingsD

In Depth: The 10 most hated programs of all time Posted: 10 worst programs of all time Programs can be our friends: they can help us express ourselves, can solve our problems and can do their very best to make our days happier. Sometimes, though, they do the Devil's work, making simple tasks so complex and frustrating that you'd happily make everybody involved face a firing squad. So which programs made everyone angry? Let's discover the software Hall of Shame. 1. Final Cut Pro X Apple's movie editing software isn't a bad program, but this release turned even the most mild-mannered editor into an incandescent ball of sheer fury. It was sold as an upgrade, but it was really a brand new, version 1.0 product - and that means it didn't have all the features or compatibility that existing users expected, wanted or relied upon. 2. Adobe Reader Everybody needs to open a PDF from time to time, but Adobe Reader is a sledgehammer sold as a nutcracker: it's enormous - on the Mac, the current version is 69.1MB - it keeps putting a shortcut on your desktop for no good reason, and once you've installed it seems to spend most of its time moaning that you haven't paid it enough attention or installed yet another enormous update. No wonder Windows 8 plans to whack it with a shovel. GOING: OS X has its own PDF reader, and Windows 8 will do the same with the new Open Reader 3. Ask Toolbar We're not fans of browser toolbars at the best of times, but the Ask Toolbar is a particularly poor one: it's been variously accused of installing itself without asking permission, making changes to users' browser settings and promoting itself to children. Many problems occurred because over-zealous software writers bundled the toolbar with their own applications but didn't ask whether or not you wanted it. WHAT'S THAT JEEVES?: We don't like third party toolbars at the best of times, but the Ask one proved particularly unpopular 4. Lotus Notes IT departments loved this popular messaging and collaboration system, but users were considerably less keen: in the mid-2000s the product was widely criticised for appearing to have been put together by somebody who really, really hated the entire human race and wanted to make it suffer. According to The Guardian, its popularity in business was partly because "the people who choose [business software] tend not to be the ones who use it." NOT OF NOTE: Lotus Notes still exists, but these days it's very different from its much-hated mid-2000s incarnation [Image credit: Koman90, Wikimedia Commons] 5. Norton Antivirus Symantec's desktop antivirus software generated enormous ill will through its unfortunate habit of slowing your PC down to a crawl. Part of the problem was that the software tried to do too much: scanning every conceivable thing you do on PC requires significant resources at a time when PCs weren't the flying machines they are today. Thankfully, Norton has addressed such issues these days. PROBLEMS, PROBLEMS: Happy Norton Man won't be smiling when his system slows down and he can't uninstall the program 6. Microsoft Word Some people say "I hate Microsoft Word because it's far too complicated!" Some say "I hate Microsoft Word because it introduced Clippy the bloody Office Assistant!" A few say "I hate Microsoft Word because it's often used by idiots to make really horrible-looking things!" Others say, "I hate Microsoft Word because its HTML output made web designers' lives miserable for years!" Still others say "I hate Microsoft Word because I keep sending .docx files that only three people on Earth can actually read!" We say, people! Come together! Let's hate Microsoft Word for all of those reasons! OFFICE PEST: Aaagh! Aaagh! Aaagh! Aaagh! 7. Adobe Flash Despite its many benefits - in web design circles it's a powerful and useful creative tool - Flash can be enormously annoying. In many cases the problem was with its users, not the technology - you can't blame Adobe for irritating splash screens, badly designed ads or appalling user interfaces - but for many internet users, a Flash blocker is the first thing they install in a new browser. NOT JUST JOBS: Flash remains a powerful design tool, but in the wrong hands it can be a powerful force for evil 8. iTunes for Windows Steve Jobs called iTunes for Windows "like giving a glass of ice water to someone in hell". The reality distortion field was strong that day, because rather than show Windows users the joys of Apple software, iTunes on Windows seems merely designed to depress them. As we've said previously, "the Windows version is a sluggish, resource-hungry mess. Apple has Windows users worldwide loving its iOS devices and despising iTunes, and this needs to change." SLOOOOOOW: iTunes is proof that Apple doesn't always get it right. On Windows it's a donkey 9. Windows Me and Windows Vista Yes, we know these are operating systems. This one's a joint nomination: Windows Me because it was a largely pointless update of Windows 98, and Windows Vista because it didn't work properly. Vista in particular should have been a great OS, but show-stopping bugs - copying a file could easily take four million years - and a lack of initial driver support turned a potential racehorse into a donkey. WOW NOW: The wow starts... now! No... now! Now! NOW! Oh okay, let's just wait for Windows 7 then 10. Internet Explorer 6 Imagine a pristine swimming pool with crystal clear water. That's the internet. Now imagine an enormous poo floating past. That's IE6. You know something's bad when even its creator dances on its grave. The problem wasn't the browser as such, which was fairly modern when it was released in 2001; it was Microsoft's refusal to update it significantly for years and years, breaking websites and leaving internet users vulnerable to all kinds of online unpleasantness. IE6 was Microsoft at its worst. TERRIBLE: "Imagine an enormous poo... that's IE6". IE6 is officially pronounced "Aieeeeeee" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gary Marshall: Tablets are no longer just idiot toys Posted: From time to time even jaded tech hacks get a "wow!" moment. I had one last night when I saw that Avid had launched an iPad app. Avid? The high-end video and ProTools firm? An iPad app? Yep, yep and yep. Avid reckons the iPad makes a great wee video editor, and its Avid Studio plays happily with the firm's high-end desktop software. It's right, and it's not the only firm thinking along the same lines. Apple, of course, already does Garageband and iMovie, Adobe has Photoshop Touch, and there are stacks of digital audio products such as Auria and the tasty-looking Bitwig music studio. Not bad for toys, eh? Getting better all the time What's really great about this is that we're still in the very early stages, both in terms of technology - we've gone from single core to dual core to quad core tablets already; imagine what horsepower tablets will have in five years - and in terms of what's possible for our tablets to do. Take music, for example. You can use your tablet as a quick and dirty composition device, or as a controller for a desktop music production program, or as a fully-fledged studio, or you can slot it into another bit of hardware such as Behringer's utterly brilliant/completely demented iAxe or its faintly frightening iPad mixers. This isn't about whether tablets are better than PCs or vice-versa; it's about people, and what they can do, and the ever-expanding universe of possibilities today's technology delivers and tomorrow's promises. We've only had iPad-y tablets for two years. What on earth will we be doing with them in ten?

New Apple iMac touchscreen tech outed in new patent Posted: A new patent application put in by Apple hints that there could be a touchscreen iMac in the works. The application, posted this week to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, outlines the concept of a desktop computer with a touchscreen GUI (graphical user interface). Now, Apple is certainly not the first to come up with a touchscreen all-in-one. The likes of Dell and HP have been churning these out for years but Apple's patent application is more to do with virtual controls on the screen, which make a touchscreen computer easier to use. Touch control These controls include a number of virtual knobs and sliders which would allow users of music and editing programmers to control the software without the need of a mouse or pen and tablet. As the patent explains: "The visual augmentation could include displaying an outline and/or fill region (eg a colour or pattern fill) around the knob element, displaying text labels for minimum and maximum range limit values and displaying a slider element with the knob element." The rumour that Apple is working on a touchscreen iMac has been around since 2008, but the appearance of virtual sliders adds more fuel to the fire that Apple is looking to get touchy feely with its iMac range.

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