Those who’ve wanted Firefox on the iPhone will soon get their wish. Kind of. Mozilla has announced that Firefox Home has been submitted to Apple for review.
Don’t let the name “Firefox” fool you, because Home isn’t really a web browser. It works in concert with the Firefox sync add-on for the desktop. Once you’ve got that installed and created an account, you’ll launch the iPhone app and re-enter your credentials.
The app will remember what tabs you had open most recently and present their contents to you. You’ll also have access to your bookmarks, recent browsing history and web search.
The service syncs 2,000 of your most recently visited items every 24 hours, and new data is synced every time you launch the app. Good luck to the Firefox Home team. We hope to test your solution soon.
Oklahoma State University is the latest school to start setting students up with iPads. Starting this fall, a pilot program will give iPads to 125 students, and the university will monitor both how the device affects their learning and what their textbook costs turn out to be. Additionally, the classes in the pilot program will look at using both apps and Web-based tools on the devices, as is appropriate for the classroom.
What’s interesting is that, instead of just handing out iPads to the students, OSU is really interested in how their students will go about using them. The results should be intriguing, not only for the lucky college kids who get to use iPads all semester but also for Apple and for other schools that are formulating plans over how to share and use technology. It certainly seems like having an iPad at college would be helpful in the traditional ways (you could read textbooks or take notes on it), but it’s cool that OSU is thinking about new ways to use it as well, such as apps for tests or connections across local Wi-Fi for networked learning.
We’ll see how OSU’s program works out. The iPad is certainly a new kind of computer, and it sounds like OSU is looking for new ways of using it on campus.
Diacarta is a to-do app like you’ve never seen. I saw it on the excellent Well-Placed Pixels blog, and the design of the thing is really interesting. Basically, to add items to the to-do list, you just add icons to the image of the clock. Once items have been added, you can see a visual representation of what your day is like. I’m not so much concerned about keeping a strict calendar as I am about just having a list of my various tasks during the day, so for someone like me, Diacarta is a new and interesting way to look at how my tasks line up.
Unfortunately, it’s probably a bit more style than substance for serious calendar users; it doesn’t sync up with other calendars at all (so you have to put everything into the app yourself), and it won’t send notifications or let you know when something you plan is actually happening. That means it’s probably not a satisfactory replacement if you already regularly use some kind of calendar.
However, as a simple visual representation of a day full of errands or various tasks, Diacarta looks great and works just as well. If that’s something you’re interested in, consider ponying up the US$1.99 price.
Those who’ve wanted Firefox on the iPhone will soon get their wish. Kind of. Mozilla has announced that Firefox Home has been submitted to Apple for review.
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Oklahoma State University is