Category: I-phone

Electronic Arts has released yet another copy of Tetris, this time for the iPhone, and it’s actually pretty good. In addition to all of the other big releases on the App Store last night, Tetris showed up and replaced EA’s older version of the game. While it might seem strange to redo a game that’s practically a computer programming lesson to make nowadays, EA’s added a little innovation anyway to prime the game for the upcoming holiday rush.

(Note that this new version of Tetris completely replaces the old one, which EA has apparently pulled from the App Store. This new iteration of Tetris will not be a free upgrade if you bought EA’s previous version, which might seem a little shady if we were talking about more than a dollar. –Ed)

The biggest addition is a mode called one-touch marathon. As each piece drops you can get a set of optional places on screen to put it, and when you touch the place you want, the piece goes there. No more twisting pieces around and waiting for them to fall in, just touch where they need to be and voila.

There’s also a new “Galaxy” mode which brings power ups to Tetris, challenges to go after in a “Tetris Log. Finally, there’s lots of social features and leaderboard integration with something called the “T-Club” as well as a “Tetris Rank,” which you can obtain for an in-app subscription of $2.99 a month. $2.99 a month for Tetris!

In short, EA has taken one of the simplest games out there and updated it with all of the standard wacky tie-ins you find on iOS titles. EA did not add Game Center, which seems a waste, but I think EA is still trying to build up its own social networks rather than hook into Apple’s. At any rate, the new game is available for just 99 cents, so while I almost don’t want to encourage this kind of behavior, the game’s there if you want to try it out.

EA (re)releases Tetris on the iPhone originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 02 Dec 2011 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Here’s an interesting acquisition that completely makes sense in hindsight. Smule, the company behind popular iOS apps like Magic Piano and the original Ocarina for iPhone app, has acquired Khush, an iOS developer that also makes musical apps, including LaDiDa and Songify. These two companies were basically meant for each other — both use music and new interfaces in iOS to make one-of-a-kind experiences for the App Store. Songify, for example, has over 5 million downloads, and Ocarina boasts over 6 million downloads. Together, these two companies know how to make these things work.

As you can read in the press release below, Smule will use Khush’s assets, and vice versa, to keep producing these types of musical apps and expand the company’s “Sonic Network” of social connections and creative sharing. Should be interesting to see what these two come up with working together. Their first work is a video, which uses both companies’ apps to make some crazy music.

The most interesting part of this merger, however, might be the one thing we don’t know: the numbers. Smule has been extremely popular on the App Store, but the fact that it would acquire another company like this shows it’s been earning some money to go along with that popularity. This is obviously not just about money — watching the video above, you can see that these two groups have very similar backgrounds and goals, and having met Smule’s Ge Wang myself a few times, I know that Smule’s work really is about making these musical experiences come true in a way that almost anyone can experience. That said, these are both for-profit companies, and it’d be interesting to see just how much Khush went for. The iOS developer acquisition game is serious business, and if Smule can acquire another company like this, it shows they have at least a little profit to throw around.

Continue reading Smule acquires Khush, two music-making app companies join forces

Smule acquires Khush, two music-making app companies join forces originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 02 Dec 2011 06:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Infinity Blade II, the sequel to the popular sword fighting action game for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad, is now available for download on the App Store. Infinity Blade, developed by Chair…

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iPhone 4S baseband unlock is pretty close than ever before. The news come straight from MuscleNerd that he has dumped the iPhone 4S baseband bootrom and they have got the screenshot as a proof……

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German government looks into Apple’s use of Carrier IQ.

iPhone battery issues continue to be a problem for users.

iFixit releases transparent rear panel for iPhone 4S.

Russia, Brazil, and several other countries getting the 4S on December 16th.

Syria bans the iPhone in order to keep protesters from exposing violence.

Don’t forget our contest that is ending on Monday.

Welcome to TUAW’s 2011 Holiday Gift Guide! We’re here to help you choose the best gifts this holiday season, and once you’ve received your gifts we’ll tell you what apps and accessories we think are best for your new Apple gear. Stay tuned every weekday from now until the end of the year for our picks and helpful guides and check our Gift Guide hub to see our guides as they become available. For even more holiday fun, check out sister site Engadget’s gift guide.

It’s camera time here at TUAW, and we’re going to help you pick out the best Mac-Friendly camera gear for this holiday season. We’ve used our own experience with digital photography and consulted a pro or two to help us out. If you have suggestions for cameras we have not covered here, please leave them in the comments!

Buying Advice for Mac Owners

Before we dive into all the details, there are a few Apple resources you should consult before you start your camera search. First is an Apple tech support article that lists all the digital cameras with RAW files supported by OS X Lion. RAW file support lets you pull the original, uncompressed image file off your camera. This is essential for professionals who prefer to edit the original file, instead of the compressed one which might contain artifacts. Apple regularly releases updates and adds new cameras to this list.

Apple also maintains a list of still and video cameras compatible with iMovie 11. iMovie will easily import data from these compatible cameras. All you have to do is connect your camera to your Mac and select import from iMovie. The software does the rest. Take it from someone who regularly spends hours editing home videos, choosing a compatible camera will save you headaches in the long run.

Now that this basic stuff is behind us, let’s get started with the cameras. We’re going to give you a quick run-down of our top choices in each camera category. If you need more information on specific camera models, you can check out photography review sites such as dpreview, imaging-resource and Steve’s Digicams. They’ll have detailed reviews, sample images and all the information you’ll need to make your decision.

Point and Shoot Cameras

Point and Shoots are a consumer category – they’re affordable, easy to use and portable. They also tend to produce a lower quality image than the bigger, more expensive DSLR. This is the sacrifice you make to get the advantage of being able to fire off a quick shot wherever your are. Recommended in this category is the Canon S95, a 10-megapixel shooter with Canon’s DIGIC 4 image processor, a high-sensitivity sensor, image stabilization and support for RAW files. One step up is the Canon S100. It’s a 12-megapixel camera with the DIGIC 5 image processor, 1080P HD video, a high-sensitivity sensor, image stabilization and support for RAW files. Another interesting offering is the Nikon COOLPIX S1200pj. It’s a projector camera that’ll let you display images from an iOS device onto a wall or screen. It’s perfect for informal presentations and spontaneous slideshows.

DSLRs

DSLRs are your typical cameras. Most have interchangeable lenses, external flash units and larger bodies. They’re usually twice the price of a point and shoot and take much better pictures. They also have more bells and whistles such as manual focus rings, faster shutter speeds, and wider apertures.

The top DSLR cameras are made by old favorites Canon and Nikon. The best Canon DSLRs available are the Canon EOS Rebel T3i and the EOS 60D. The two 18-megapixel cameras have the same DIGIC 4 processor, 1080P HD recording, and ISO6400. The EOS 60D is a slight step up from the T3i and has some additional features, such as the ability to shoot at 5.3 frames per second, compared to the 3.7 of the T3i.

Nikon also makes some quality DSLRs including the D5100 and the D7000. The D5100 is a 16.2-megapixel camera with an 11-point AF system, 4 frames per second shooting and 1080P HD with continuous autofocus. One level up is the D7000. It, too, is a 16.2-megapixel shooter but captures photos at 6 frames per second, has a 37-point AF system and captures full time autofocus 1080P HD video.

Video Cameras

The video camera market is undergoing a transformation. Compact video cameras like those made by Flip are slowly disappearing now that we have smartphones which record at 1080P HD. Smartphone cameras can’t match the quality of a dedicated video camera, but they’re good enough for most people. If you need more than what your camera phone can deliver, you should take a look at the Canon Vixia HF M41. The M41 is a monster with 32GB of internal flash memory and dual SDCX slots in case you need even more storage. It shoots in 1080P HD and has a touch and track autofocus that lets you tap the screen to focus on a single subject. It’s a solid performer and is compatible with iMovie 11.

Panasonic also makes quality video cameras both for the consumer and the professional. In its consumer line, a favorite is the Panasonic TM90 which has the HYBRID O.I.S. (optical image stabilizer) to produce crisp, clear, shake-free video. It records 1080/60P HD and can capture in 3D when a special 3D conversion lens is attached to the camera.

Shock and Waterproof Cameras

Canon and Nikon go head to head again with two cameras that are waterproof, cold-proof and shockproof. Both the 16-megapixel Nikon COOLPIX AW100 and the 12-megapixel Canon PowerShot D10 are rugged cameras that’ll survive almost anything you throw at them.

Security Cameras

For some solid advice on security cameras, you don’t have to look any farther than our own Auntie TUAW. She recommends the Logitech security systems which are easy to setup and have companion iOS software. NightOwl also provides an all-in-one security package that works with iOS. Surprisingly, Panasonic, one of the top makers of security cameras, doesn’t have an iOS app, but their cameras are compatible with third-party surveillance apps like Mobiscope from Shape Services.

Baby Monitors with Video Cameras

We’ve had the chance to review two remote video baby monitoring system. Both the iBaby and WiFi Baby 3G let you watch your baby while you are in the next room or away on business. The iBaby has the edge if you need a camera that can pan and tilt, while the WiDi Baby 3G is better for those who a want a monitor that deliver a bright, crisp image even at night. You can read our review of the iBaby and the WiFi Baby 3G.

Camera Accessories

GorillaPod is a flexible tripod for photographers on the go. It fits in a bag, and it’s bendable legs means its can be mounted on almost any surface.

Eye-Fi makes a series of WiFi-enable SD cards that’ll let you transfer your images wirelessly from your camera to your computer. You can also transfer media to an online service like Photobucket.

Rogue FlashBenders and Professor Kobre’s Lightscoop are two accessories to help you manage the output from a camera flash. The FlashBenders fit a shoe mount flash and help you direct and diffuse the output of the flash. The LightScoop is a similar product except it attaches to a camera with a permanent pop-up flash.

Optoma Pico PK301 Projector is a 16:9 projector small enough to fit in your pocket. The projector will display an 854 x 480 resolution image, up to 72-inches in size. It’s terrific for anyone who travels to do presentations.

iPhone Camera Accessories

Photojojo’s iPhone Lens Dial is a set of three lens for the iPhone 4 and 4S. The lenses include a 0.33x Fisheye lens, a 0.7x Wide Angle lens, and a 1.5x Telephoto lens. All three are mounted on a rotating dial which is part of larger aircraft-grade aluminum case. The case-lens combo will both enhance your camera and protect your phone.

Olloclip is another camera lens set for the iPhone 4/4S. It’s a little less expensive than the Photojojo, because it’s a smaller slip-on device that sits on the corner of your iPhone. It includes a fish eye lens, a wide angle lens and a macro lens. The Olloclip can hold only two lenses at a time. You need to switch one out, if you want to use the third.

Glif is an elegant iPhone stand and tripod mount. It started as Kickstarter project and took off from there. I can see why, the design is simple, functional and beautiful.

GorillaMobile is a smaller version of the GorillaPod for the iPhone. It’s perfect for those hard to get shots you can’t reach with a conventional tripod.

RainBallet is a waterproof case with Sharpvue lenses on the front and back of the case. It takes your iPhone 4/4S and turns it a high-quality, waterproof camera.

Holiday Gift Guide: Cameras originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 01 Dec 2011 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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By now you’ve probably heard of the widely reported case of Siri’s alleged pro-life stance. Walking the dogs this morning, I thought through what I hoped would be an interesting blog post about what I feel this means about Apple and our relationship to technology. I see an interesting link here between Siri and the heavy-on-the-texture UIs of Apple apps like iCal and Find My Friends.

Even before the response from Apple was published, it seemed more likely to me that this wasn’t so much a case of Apple pushing a political agenda as it was a limitation of Siri making it look that way. Indeed, if anything Apple seems to have a a liberal, rather than conservative, political agenda — for example, it donated $100,000 to the campaign to keep gay marriage legal in California in 2010. But, really, all this is incidental to what I was thinking of writing.

Then Adam Engst wrote a great post at TidBITS that stole my thunder by pre-empting most of what I had to say! The gist of his argument is as follows: that the problem with Siri is that, although it looks very much like sorcery at first glance (and although Apple carefully presents it that way in its advertising), it really isn’t. It’s just another computer program like all the rest — and like all the rest it comes with limitations and drawbacks and bugs and issues. It doesn’t help that the chattery nature of Siri — the jokey responses, the easter eggs, the sly film references — create a substantial facade that it really is a facsimile of a real person. But that’s all it is: a facade.

Sometimes that facade cracks. For example, we’ve seen problems because of cloud failures — or, indeed, if you have no data signal on your phone to communicate with the Siri data centre then it simply stops working. In the case of the searches for abortion-related matters, the problem appears to simply be a lack of information in the backing databases that Siri draws upon, like Yelp and Wolfram Alpha. I’m sure that this is only one of many such gaps in Siri’s knowledge, albeit a highly politically charged one. For example, Siri’s address lookups are resolutely US only, despite it being supported in many other countries (such as my native UK) and Yelp having a perfectly reasonable database for it to use.

Where I’d like to go further than Engst does is by drawing comparisons between Siri and Apple’s recent trend towards so-called “skeumorphic” UIs. This is the extensive use of real-world textures and imagery to underpin an app’s functionality. Think of iCal on Lion, Calendar on the iPad, Game Center on iOS, or Find My Friends on the iPhone — with leather bits, and little torn edges, and faux piles of poker chips, and stacks of pages in the corner of the screen.

I have a vehement aesthetic objection to the look-and-feel of most of these apps; I find them pointless, distracting and, frankly, a bit twee. This is merely my own tastes, though. Thinking more objectively I also have a practical objection. I believe that skeumorphic UIs create false models of interaction. For example, in iBooks there is a stack of pages on the corner of the screen; a swipe across that stack turns the page. Seems logical enough, right? But the same stack of pages in Calendar for iPad on iOS 4 was not swipeable. It looked the same — and clearly a real-world stack of pages can be turned — but Apple seemingly just missed this feature out.

You might think that it’s no big deal for Apple to implement that, and indeed the feature turned up in iOS 5 — but I would humbly suggest that this is a hole with no bottom. The same stack-of-pages decoration still isn’t swipeable in Contacts, for example. Look at iCal for Lion — look at those little torn edges across the top of the page, where the virtual remains of last months page are seemingly left behind. Why can’t I tear them off with my mouse and clean them up? That’s exactly what I’d do with a real calendar that looked like that.

And even if Apple somehow made a UI that has almost every interaction a reasonable human being might expect of it — a tall order, but let’s suppose — it’s still only going to feel like a sheet of glass. As Bret Victor’s fantastic essay on interaction design brillianty demonstrates, “pictures under glass” are never going to be anything more. If you can’t smell the leather, or feel the grain, why make it look like leather in the first place?

Getting back to my original point, I see a link here. Skeumorphic UIs resemble physical objects, but they cannot hope to emulate the myriad ways we have to emulate physical objects — so they are always doomed to disappoint on some level if we let ourselves be fooled. Siri presents itself as a real person, a sort of “auditory skeuomorphism” if you will. But short of passing a Turing test one day that, too, is doomed to always disappoint. Sure, it looks like magic — but so did the Wizard of Oz until Toto pulled back the curtain. Never forget that there’s wires and gears back there making it work, or you’ll be surprised when the abstractions leak.

Footnote: let’s look again at Apple spokesperson Natalie Kerris’s statement to the New York Times. She said “[t]hese are not intentional omissions meant to offend anyone. It simply means that as we bring Siri from beta to a final product, we find places where we can do better, and we will in the coming weeks.”

I think it is interesting for two reasons. Firstly, I’m rather cynical about Siri’s “beta” nature; I agree with Macworld senior contributor Glenn Fleishman, who wrote, “If you’re advertising Siri as a feature, it’s not beta.” On iPhone 4S launch day, I spent ten minutes in an Apple Store enduring a low impact sales pitch from a Genius and he didn’t mention the “beta” word once. Nor does it appear in Apple’s TV spot. But then again, Gmail was in beta for six years; I’m not even sure I know what beta is supposed to mean any more, and I write software for a living.

Still, though, it seems to be that Apple are suggesting that as long as Siri has “places where we can do better” it’ll be in beta. Well, hmmm. As I mentioned above, I’m not sure how — short of some sort of Skynet-level breakthrough in AI tech — Siri will ever be finished. With a field as complex as natural language processing, there’s simply too much that can go wrong — too many ways for humans to innocently throw a spanner in the works with their rich and wonderful languages. I do wonder if perhaps that statement to the Times was just a teensy bit rushed so Apple could nip the story in the bud. Not that I’d blame it for that, but it struck me as an interesting point nevertheless.

Why Siri is like skeuomorphic UIs: the magic is just skin deep originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 01 Dec 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Using a Mac laptop at night is great thanks to automatic-brightness controls and a backlit keyboard. Trouble is that sometimes even the lowest setting is too bright for midnight screen gazing. That’s where Brightness Slider comes in.

It’s a menu bar utility that lets you adjust the screen’s backlight brightness. It gives you linear control over your backlight and lets you dim your screen even further than either the brightness keys or System Preferences allow you to go without turning off the backlight completely.

Unlike other applications that allow you to “dim” your screen, such as Sunset, which actually put a shade or dark tint over your screen to reduce perceived brightness, Brightness Slider gives you direct control over the actual backlight.

If you ever wish you had quick access to finer grained control over your Mac’s backlight than the backlight keys F1 and F2 give you, or you want it just a little bit dimmer at night, then Brightness Slider is worth a free download from the Mac App Store.

Daily Mac App: Brightness Slider originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 01 Dec 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hearst Magazines, the publisher of titles such as Cosmopolitan and Esquire, is happy with electronic distribution on tablet devices such as the iPad. According to a Reuters article yesterday, Hearst President David Carey says the company has about 400,000 electronic subscribers so far and expects to have over 1 million subscribers at some point in 2012.

Tablet providers such as Apple take about 35 percent of subscription revenue, giving Hearst about 65 percent of the revenue of each subscription sold. That’s better than print newsstand sales, where publishers only keep about 55 percent of revenue. Magazine publishers weren’t happy with Apple’s terms for subscriptions sold through the App Store, primarily because they gave up control of the subscriber data used to sell advertising.

Apple allows consumers to opt into sharing that personal data, and Carey said that up to 65 percent of iPad subscribers were allowing Hearst to have the information — a figure he said was much higher than expected.

Between the higher revenues and still being able to get the subscriber information they want, Hearst Magazines is pretty happy with the deal. Publishers weren’t ecstatic about negotiations with Apple earlier in 2011. Carey joked that “There was so much drama with Apple negotiations … you would expect someone to sell the movie rights from all that debate last spring.” Carey conceded that the Apple deal was “a pretty efficient distribution for us to be honest.”

Hearst Magazines: iPad “a pretty efficient distribution for us” originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 01 Dec 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You’ll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what’s happening in the Apple world.

You can listen to today’s Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here.

No Flash? Click here to listen.

Daily Update for December 1, 2011 originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 01 Dec 2011 17:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Right now for about a hundred bucks, you can buy a Ceiva picture frame. This device allows you to email pictures to a physical photo frame, allowing you to connect your digital lifestyle to your loved ones.

If you have parents or grandparents who don’t spend their days hunched over email and Facebook (or even if they do), the Ceiva provides a solution that brings your photos away from your computer and into the living room.

What’s more, if you have siblings, you can all share a common photo email address and send images from your phones no matter where you are physically located. For families living in today’s reality of widespread home life, that can help parents connect with their kids, whether they’re at college, summer camp, or with their own families in far-off states.

Hardware and connection options

Ceiva units work using a home’s Wi-Fi network but they’re backwards compatible as well. Owners who don’t connect directly to the Internet can use a standard telephone wall plug with the Ceiva’s built-in modem. The unit calls home to Ceiva during the night and pick up new photos. So if your family member is in, say, assisted living, the Ceiva can sit on a table and use phone calls instead of Wi-Fi networking.

When you cannot access a local number, you can pay an additional $16/month for toll-free number access. (Ceiva has about thousands of numbers nation-wide plus in Canada and Puerto Rico)

Ceiva was kind enough to send over a review unit that I’ve been testing for a couple of weeks. I have it set up using Wi-Fi, so the response time is very good. I don’t have to wait until morning to see new pictures. They typically show up within minutes. I was out at the barber shop with my boy a few days ago, and our pictures got home before we did.

The screen is bright and clear, although it is not huge. It seems to run about 8″ diagonal, although I did not measure it myself. That number comes from the Ceiva website. It is embedded in a fairly plain black frame that will fit most decors. A built-in slot accommodates a remote control, hiding it and giving it a convenient place to live.

Service and setup

If I have any complaints about the equipment and the service, it is this. First, I’d love to be able to pay a little more upfront and decouple the frame from the monthly/annual fees. I have several of my own domains, and with Wi-Fi, my unit need never take advantage of the Ceiva phone access service. I’d love to be able to set it up with its own email address at a given domain, and then use it indefinitely, decoupled from the Ceiva web services.

Second, I found setup to be unnecessarily complicated. The unit ships with numerous preset images. Once the device is registered, those images should have automatically been deleted rather than having me delete them at the website.

Finally, it was a little complicated to discover the unit’s email. (Hint: Go to ceiva.com, sign in, select Members > My Account > CeivaMobile Addresses.) Their website really could use a major redesign to reflect standard usage patterns.

Final thoughts

Once set up the device is super easy to use. Just add the ceivamobile.com email address to your phone’s contacts and shoot off emails with attached photographs. If you’re using the iPhone, make sure to send at least “Medium” resolution images. “Small” images aren’t big enough to display full screen.

All in all, Ceiva provides good value but it doesn’t come cheap. Fees start at $9.95/month after the first year, go down to $8.95 if you pay for an entire year of service in advance, and end up at $6.95 if you pre-pay three years. Payments allow your frame to continue operating with the Ceiva service, but also cover a basic insurance plan. If your frame dies during covered service, Ceiva will replace or fix the unit.

Snap and send photos from your iPhone to Ceiva the networked picture frame originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 01 Dec 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Leopard owners, it might be time for you to update your operating system. It’s four years old, and companies, including Apple, are no longer supporting it. Earlier this year, 1Password dropped support for OS X 10.5 Leopard, and now Mozilla may do the same with Firefox.

Mozilla engineering manager Josh Aas proposed ending support for OS X Leopard in six months. It lets Mozilla address any final bug or security fixes and gives Leopard owners time to upgrade if they want. Leopard owners don’t have to upgrade as the current version of Firefox will continue to work. They just won’t receive any supplemental security fixes or enhancements to the browser.

If you want to upgrade your system, we are publishing a series of Holiday Gift Guides that’ll help you choose the right Mac and all the accessories to go along with it. Apple also recently upgraded its Migration Assistant App to support a move from Leopard to Lion. It’s free, and it’ll make sure your apps and data make the transition successfully.

[Via ComputerWorld]

Mozilla ponders ending Firefox support for Leopard originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 01 Dec 2011 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filemaker has released free holiday-themed goodies for Bento users. The Bento Holiday Kit has templates for cards and labels, a party planner and a gift list. To take advantage of this, you need to have Bento 4 for Mac installed. A free trial is available for those who want to see the program in action.

U.S. users can download the holiday kit here, and a version for UK users can download the kit here.

Filemaker offers free holiday kits for Bento users originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 01 Dec 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Many people will buy a new or used car at some point, and that process has been enhanced immensely by the latest version of the free iPhone app from Edmunds.

The app, simply called “Edmunds,” offers new and used car pricing and appraisals, plus the thorough reviews that Edmunds is famous for.

The app draws from the vast Edmunds archive of about 24,000 cars and trucks, and contains about a quarter of a million photos. The app also contains owner reviews, which can be just as enlightening as the pro reviews.

Edmunds for iPhone was recently updated to include NHTSA and IIHS crash test results and safety ratings, as well as predicted price trends for new vehicles. You can get the same information from the regular Edmunds website, but the iPhone app is easier to use.

The app also includes links to your nearest dealers, and of course, complete features, specs and estimated pricing of add-ons. You will see ads, but they’re largely unobtrusive.

There isn’t much to dislike about this app, but I have a few small complaints. First, you must scroll down a long list of names to find a make of car. A search field would speed up that process.

Also, the ‘share’ button scrolls off the screen. It’d be more useful if it stayed put. For example, if you’re in the middle of a long review and want to send it to yourself of someone else, you must scroll back to the top to find the share button.

Wrapping up my complaints, I’ll note that the app description says it includes videos, but I couldn’t find a single one. The developer says that this is likely due to a tagging issue which will be fixed with an update. Finally, Edmunds for iPhone app is not universal, so it will run on an iPad but not at the proper resolution.

Those issues aside, I think this app represents the very best way to research a new or used car purchase. Edmunds has an enviable reputation for objectivity and opinions untainted by car manufacturers. This latest update adds welcome new information, in particular the crash tests results. If you are looking for a new or used car, this app should be your first stop, and it probably will be the only stop many people need. It gets a very high recommendation. Check the gallery for some screen shots.

If a car purchase is looming, check the Edmunds iPhone app originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 01 Dec 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Exactly one day after the terms of Apple’s rental deal for its new Grand Central Terminal retail store became public, New York State investigators are looking into whether the Metropolitan Transit Authority gave “overly generous terms” to Apple for the space. The New York Post reports that the state comptroller is investigating the terms of Apple’s lease and other facets of the MTA’s business dealings

“The article in the New York Post about the MTA’s contract with Apple in Grand Central Terminal is a cause for concern,” comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said. “This is a prime property, and I intend to make sure that the MTA hasn’t given away the store.”

Apple did indeed receive quite generous terms for its lease; alone among all businesses in Grand Central Terminal, Apple will not have to share a percentage of its sales with MTA, and its rent for the space is much lower than most other tenants. However, Apple also paid the previous tenant US$5 million to clear out early, and Apple is paying for infrastructure improvements to the space out of its own pocket.

MTA expects its generous rental terms to pay off in the long run; it predicts the presence of an Apple Store will increase traffic in Grand Central Terminal and thereby increase revenues in surrounding businesses which do yield a proportion of their sales to MTA. However, our own back-of-the-envelope calculations show that in order for MTA to receive a similar return on investment from Apple compared to the landlord of Apple’s 5th Avenue space, other Grand Central Terminal businesses will need to increase sales by (a perhaps unrealistic) 7.5 percent.

Apple’s Grand Central Terminal retail store will open on December 9.

New York State probes Apple’s deal for NYC Grand Central Terminal space originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 01 Dec 2011 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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