cover flow

Apple has once again been cleared of infringing on patents held by Mirror Worlds.

In a ruling posted today by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, the court upheld (PDF) a lower court decision from April 2011, which sided with Apple.

Mirror Worlds originally accused Apple of infringing on its patents with features included in its Mac OS X operating systems going back to 10.4 "Tiger," as well as in its iOS devices including the iPhone, iPod, and iPad. The company, which was founded by Yale University computer-science professor David Gelernter, … Read more

Spotify has released its first official iPad app today, with what a Spotify exec describes as "the most beautiful screen we've made for a Spotify app."

Spotify has previously released apps for PC, Mac, and Android with a tablet-compatible Android version to be expected "in the coming weeks," according to Charlie Hellman, Spotify's director of product development.

The app adds a dedicated Inbox icon grouped by user to access messages, Cover Flow-style navigation of playlists, and gapless playback and DJ-style crossfade.… Read more

The browser extension, ImageFlow for Amazon - PictureFox, makes it easy to view Amazon product photos in a gallery like Apple's CoverFlow.

After you install the extension, you'll notice a Play button above the images on the Amazon product page.

Clicking on the Play button will launch the ImageFlow gallery in a new tab, where you can easily navigate through all the photos, including those uploaded by customers (can be disabled).

When browsing through a list of Amazon products, hovering over the product will also display an enlarged preview image of that product. If you don'… Read more

Apple has come out the victor in a three-year-old patent infringement suit that would have cost the company more than $625 million for infringing on patents held by Mirror Worlds.

The case, in which a jury had found Apple liable last October, targeted the Cover Flow, Spotlight search, and Time Machine features found in Apple's Mac OS. The October jury ruling was fought by the Cupertino, Calif.-based technology company with an emergency motion to stay. In that motion, Apple said the damages were too high and urged the court to re-evaluate the evidence.

In the court's ruling … Read more

iTunes is a database application that stores, sorts, and plays media, and like any database, the more organized it is, the more powerful it can be. Find out how to get your songs organized for more efficient playback in iTunes and on your iOS devices.

I'm sure we've all been there. We're rifling through our iTunes Library in Cover Flow view looking for the perfect album to jam out to while finally doing the dishes when we see the same album art show up for the same artist as if it's two different records. In other … Read more

Cover Stream is a standalone app designed to help you browse through and listen to your iTunes music, using a visual, intuitive, and unobtrusive interface that's similar to iTunes' Cover Flow.

You can use Cover Stream through your menu bar, in a separate window (which you can toggle to full screen, or to float on top), or both, and the app makes it easy to flip through albums and playlists, play music (including standard controls such as pause, shuffle, and volume, along with a host of system-wide hot keys), build a "Jukebox Mode" queue (including a shuffle … Read more

Like Cover Flow for contacts, PhoneFace lets you create a custom favorites list comprised entirely of photos (and/or avatars).

In other words, it's a visual alternative to the iPhone's own Favorites list. And a terrific one at that.

To get started, you tap the Plus icon, then choose an existing contact from your address book. If there's not already an associated photo, you'll have the option to snap one with the iPhone's camera, choose one from your photo library, pick an avatar from PhoneFace's collection, or even pull down his/her Twitter profile … Read more

As those of you with older PCs may have noticed the hard way, some of the new features in Apple's Safari 4 beta for Windows require a graphics card with at least 64MB of on-board RAM that supports at least DirectX 9. This makes it the first browser I've heard of with an explicit graphics card requirement, but is this really a big deal?

DirectX 9 has been around since 2004, and you can pick up a card for your desktop that supports it for around 20 bucks. This isn't quite analogous to Windows requiring a massive … Read more

This iShelf design by Li Jianye takes the iTunes Cover Flow idea and brings it to real life. Think about it too hard and you might notice its small inadequacies (it can only hold five jewel cases and doesn't rotate), but it's the cleverly ironic idea that counts, right? Plus, you can put it on your shelf and brag to your Mac friends that you don't need the PC version of iTunes to make you happy. The iShelf is currently still in the prototype stages of design and might never see the light of day.

More pics after the jump.… Read more