Facebook Application Development

Google’s map data has been baked into the iOS Maps app since the days of the first, thick, aluminum-backed iPhone, but that may no longer be the case once iOS 6 hits the streets. Unnamed sources told 9to5Mac that the Cupertino company would instead take that opportunity to reveal their own Maps application, and those early reports paint a pretty impressive picture.

Astute readers may recall that Apple has been on something of a mapping company shopping spree these past few years — what began with the purchase of Placebase in 2009, continued with Poly9 in 2010, and culminated with Apple snapping up C3 Technologies late last year.

In one of the most anticlimactic (and likely ineffective) marketing campaigns in history, RIM has today launched its “Wake Up. Be Bold.” campaign in Australia. It began with a group of “protestors” disembarking from a bus outside of Apple’s Sydney store with signs that read “Wake Up.” But don’t get too excited — that’s the most exciting part of the story.

After the long and vigorous rivalry between Samsung and Apple, both in marketing and in the courts, the South Korea-based company was originally blamed for the seemingly out-of-the-blue protest. RIM, of course, kept quiet.

But it was in fact RIM that staged the shit show, which all culminated in the launch of the wakeupbebold.com website, wherein an Australian man explains how business has changed and that to be different you mustn’t just “think different,” but “do different” (which I’m fairly certain is grammatically incorrect), lest you end up “floating through life like a cork in a stream.”

Congratulations. You’re the CEO of a startup. You’re doing the hardest job in business. You’ve raised money from venture capitalists and turned down better-paying jobs elsewhere. You’ve mastered complicated things such as capitalization tables and common things, such as payroll. You’ve fought with competitors, coworkers, friends and even yourself without losing your way or your wits. You’ve inspired others to work beside you each day to make your dream a reality. I salute you.

Now, everybody else calling himself or herself a CEO—listen up, this is for you: stop it. Just stop calling yourself a CEO.

When Apple launched iPhoto for iPhone, it quickly became clear that there was something odd going on with the maps in the application. Even though Apple never talked about this publicly, the data Apple used to render these new maps was clearly not from Google anymore. Instead, most experts agreed, Apple was using a number of different sources to create its new map tiles without giving proper credit to groups like OpenStreetMap, the Wikipedia-like crowdsourced mapping organization. This week’s update to iPhoto for iPhone, however, finally gives credit where credit is due.

Electronic Freedom Fighters and knee-jerk reactionaries: prepare your big drums because here comes the cause of the week. We learned about Gatekeeper, Apple’s app signing solution that ensures “rogue” apps can’t infect your computer, a few months ago when the company announced the coming of a new OS, Mountain Lion. Developers recently received a note reminding them to begin implementing Gatekeeper features or, well, nothing bad will happen: