Category: I-phone

Remember the old cellphone game Snake? It’s been around longer than I’ve been alive, but became a hit once it became standard on Nokia cellphones. I have fond memories of standing in cold registration lines in college and playing the game as I waited to sign up for classes.

Screen Snake is a free version of that game that’s been ported to the Mac. It’s as easy to play as the cellphone version and launching the game automatically starts the snake crawling across your Mac’s screen. There’s a few options for changing the snake size, but there’s no ability to pause the game at this time or keeping score on the free version. The paid version (US$1.99) adds more levels and scores.

It’s a good time-waster, and if you’re looking for a splash of nostalgia, this is a good game to keep around.

Daily Mac App: Screen Snake originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 03 Nov 2011 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lots of developers are aiming for huge success in the App Store, and it seems like nearly every day we’re reading about someone who made a big game and is picking up something like a million dollars a day from customers clicking that little “Install” button.

L’Escapadou didn’t make quite that much — it’s a studio that works on “educational and fun apps for iOS,” and in this blog post, developer Pierre Abel walks through the $200,000 the company has made on the App Store so far. As you can read, however, it’s a combination of a lot of hard work, and a little bit of luck — Abel worked for months on the few apps he’s produced for the store, and only after he got covered in the press for the right audience did he see a nice jump in sales. Also note that it took multiple updates — none of his apps soared in revenue right out of the gate; he had to provide new content based on customer feedback and support his released apps before he saw the charts curve upwards.

But not everybody sees even that level of success. FastCompany recently posted an accusation that the App Store was “more of a casino than a gold mine,” excerpting a new book called “Appilionaires” that suggests developers investing big in the App Store might as well just put all of their money on black at Harrah’s. Maybe it’s true, that the App Store is the “world’s most competitive software market,” but to hear this excerpt tell it, success with an iOS app is all luck — being in the right place with the right app at the right time, to get swept up into the machine of fame and success, or losing all of your money and time invested with a great app that no one ever notices or sees.

Of course the truth is somewhere in between — some great apps do sit there for a while before anyone notices just how good they are, and some terrible apps get caught up in hype or marketing and pick up lots of revenue anyway. In the end, the App Store works very much like any other marketplace: You need to have a product that people want, and then show people it exists and convince them that they want it. Despite the “gold mine” dreams, creating and releasing an app is a lot of work, even if some people are better or more experienced at that work than others. There is money to be made on the App Store — that’s for sure. But how that money is made and by whom is controlled by many factors, of which luck is only one.

Hitting it big in the App Store … or not originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 03 Nov 2011 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hothead Games’ great freemium card game for iOS, Kard Combat, has gotten a big update this week in the App Store. The biggest new feature is a new “pass-and-play” multiplayer mode, which allows for two players with one iOS device in the same place to play their cards out, and then pass the device on to the next person. Obviously, it requires a little bit of honor on the part of players, but if you just want to play a friendly game of Kard Combat, it’s a cool mode to try. Game Center multiplayer has also been added to the game to work inside iOS 5, and there are new UI updates and a few other new features in there as well.

Firemint’s line-drawing stealth game Spy Mouse has also gotten an update, bringing in new global leaderboards, new challenges, and a few other bug fixes and other tweaks. Kiska, the in-game cat which will help you get past some of the tougher levels, can now also be used once per hour rather than just once per day.

Artistic platformer Contre Jour also got a nice update, adding 20 new levels to play through, featuring a cool opposite visual style from the rest of the game.

And finally, while it hasn’t been updated recently or anything, I’ll also just mention that Super Stickman Golf is free today as well. If you haven’t picked up this great little 2D fantasy golf game for iOS, now’s the time.

Kard Combat, Spy Mouse, more push big updates originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 03 Nov 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you own a Kindle — the hardware device, not the software app that runs on your iPhone or iPad, and you’re an Amazon Prime member, you can now borrow thousands of books to read on your device. The equation goes like this: Kindle + Prime = about 5000 titles include a hundred or so current and former NYT best sellers.

This move leaves Apple’s iBooks initiative further behind in terms of innovation and trailblazing. The Kindle app runs on most computers and devices, including OS X and iOS. iBooks is limited to iOS platforms only. Kindle has long provided person-to-person lending and other advanced reading features that set their platform apart.

The ball is in Apple’s court. Surely it’s time for Apple to step up with new media authoring tools and a Mac reader at least. Today’s announcement demonstrates that Amazon knows what sells Kindles — traditional and fire.

Amazon introduces free lending library for Prime members originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 03 Nov 2011 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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For those of you who are eco-conscious and are looking for an iPhone case, you may want to check out the Re-case. The Re-case is made from rice agricultural waste that is added to post-consumer thermo-plastics resulting in a case that is literally made from trash. Besides its environmentally friendly status, the Re-case also offers a slot users can keep an RFID-enabled card in, such as an Oyster card for London’s tube network or a security card for work, allowing for quick use of the card without having to fumble through your wallet.

The Re-case comes in six colors and is available for US$24.95 on Amazon.com.

Eco-friendly iPhone case made from trash originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 03 Nov 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple appears to be expanding the retail pickup option that began in three San Francisco Apple Stores. With the program, orders made in the online Apple Store can be picked up in a retail store by customers, making it easy to purchase a configure-to-order (CTO) device and still get the personalized service you need from Apple Store employees.

The pickup coverage expanded earlier this week to include New York City, and today expanded to cover all of California. It’s expected that this service will soon be available at all Apple Stores worldwide.

Apple expands in-store pickup to all of California originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 03 Nov 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sparrow for Mac is a popular Gmail client for the desktop that’s easy to use and even easier on the eyes. Soon, its elegant simplicity will be available on the iPhone. Sparrow developer Dominique Leca talked to Business Insider and let the cat out of the bag about the company’s upcoming iPhone app. Here’s what he had to say,

We want our user to spend less time on mail. Our goal is to provide an efficient and playful experience. But we need to see if the UI we’ve come up with makes as much sense on the iPhone as we thought when we designed it. Our focus is efficiency.

According to the Business Insider report, the iPhone version of Sparrow is midway through development. The team is putting the final touches on the core app and is tweaking the user interface design to see what works best for the app. An early screenshot suggests it will support avatars, multiple accounts, and will have the signature Sparrow look.

Sparrow for the iPhone is expected to arrive in the upcoming months. Knowing the quality of work produced by the folks at Sparrow, it will be worth the wait.

Sparrow for iPhone tease originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 03 Nov 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Guy Kawasaki was the keynote speaker for the first day of MacTech 2011. Instead of a talk about Enchantment or Bozosity, this talk took a different turn: It was about Steve Jobs.

Specifically, it was about what Guy had learned from Steve and from working for Steve. I really liked his talk since it was a bit more personal than some of the other presentations I’ve seen him give. It was fun to watch him walk across a photo of an Apple employee reunion and point out people and explain who they were. I really felt like I was getting a chance to sit and talk with Guy about Steve and Apple and his time there, not like I was sitting in a room full of people listening to him talk. I enjoy any chance I get to hear him speak, and he’s good at it, so everybody wins, but it’s nice to see something that was more personally about him.

One of the biggest things he learned was how to give a good presentation, and his slides reflected that. He pointed out that (like Steve) he uses a dark background which is easier on the eyes (and if you’re a speaker who walks into the projector beam, your eyes are saved too), keeping the info on a slide as minimal as possible, and shared his own formula for determining the minimum font size in a presentation: Determine the age of the oldest person seeing the slides, and divide their age by two. That’s your minimum font size.

I liked his specifics about Steve, too. He was discussing how a leader needs to know when it’s time to make a change if the wrong path was chosen. He said, “Steve can say something and reverse himself later, and you’ll think he was right twice.”

A favorite of the Apple fanatical was the slide after that, which said “Real CEOs demo.” (I know it was a favorite, it got applause.) His example was how Steve knew the products well enough to demo them, and he brought other people in to show off other pieces, but it was basically the Steve show and no other company does that even still.

Two things stuck with me as things I learned from Guy that he learned from Steve: First, design counts. (I already knew I was all over this, but it was reinforced during the talk.) It’s important that something look good, and price does NOT equal value. Also, he put up a chart with two axis, “Unique” and “Value”. He discussed the other three pieces and then made it to the last one and said, “What I learned from Steve is that history is made in the upper right corner.”

This was a great way to kick off MacTech 2011, it was nice to start with some fun and a tribute to the person who is why we’re all here in Los Angeles in the first place.

MacTech 2011: Guy Kawasaki’s keynote address originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 03 Nov 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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For many first-grade students, the best way to let your teacher know what you want is to raise your hand or shout out your request. But for some special needs students, it’s difficult to speak or put thoughts into words. Marin County, California is now using iPads to help these students communicate with their instructors.

Through grants from a fundraising organization called Dedication to Special Education, all 19 Marin County school districts have been receiving technology to help out special needs students. What’s changing the face of technology for these students is the iPad. As noted by Sarah King, the co-chairwoman of Dedication to Special Education, “We’ve gone from a DynaVox, which costs about US$8,000, to a $500 iPad that does essentially the same thing. And the iPad is a lot easier for students to manipulate.”

The organization plans to use about $85,000 of their grant money to purchase as many as 80 iPads this year, but that doesn’t meet the demand of special education teachers who have requested about $176,000 in technology — including 122 iPads.

King’s 19-year-old son is autistic, and uses an iPad application called Conversation Builder to learn how to converse in social situations. Other students helped by the organization are using apps Proloquo2Go and Tap to Talk, both of which use pictures to let users express what they want to say.

King notes that “In the past, we’ve bought dozens of computers, interactive whiteboards, projectors and software. But the iPad is taking over the universe.” For the special needs students who are benefiting from the iPads and applications, Dedication to Special Education and the Apple devices are giving them a voice.

iPad gives voice to Marin County, CA special needs students originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 03 Nov 2011 15:00:00 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 November 3, 2011 originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 03 Nov 2011 14:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple has filed a complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) against seven domain names featuring the word iPhone that forward to mobile porn sites — including one site called iPhone4s.com.

The latter is especially worrisome, since it matches the name of Apple’s new and best-selling handset. The iPhone4s.com site was registered in August of 2008, well before the unveiling of the iPhone 4S in October of 2011. Apple owns domains for iPhone4.com, but iPhone3GS and iPhone 3G are actually non-Apple sites.

Some of the other domains targeted in the WIPO complaint include iphonecamforce.com, iphonecam4s, and porn4iphones. All are hardcore sites that Apple does not wish to be associated with, plus they use Apple’s product name in the domain name. Apple has used WIPO successfully in domain name disputes, most recently when the organization ordered the owners of iPods.com to transfer the domain name to Apple.

Apple doesn’t always resort to WIPO in these situations. Last year, they spent a rumored US$4.5 million to purchase the domain iCloud.com from Swedish cloud computing firm Xcerion. But in this case, the company obviously doesn’t want potential customers to get a surprise when they’re just looking for information about iPhones, so they’re going to WIPO for satisfaction.

Apple takes on porn sites in domain name dispute originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 03 Nov 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The next time you visit your local Walgreens store to get a prescription, find pain relief, choose laxatives or buy “Walker Balls,” you may get help from an iPad-toting Walgreens employee called a “health guide.”

Walgreens, based in Deerfield, IL, is testing a new service in 16 stores in the Chicago area where a full-time employee carrying an iPad wanders the store to help out customers who are seeking assistance. To quote Colin Watts, the chief innovation officer for Walgreen Company, “The concept is meant to create a pharmacy and health care ‘help desk’ where customers get solutions or referrals for their personal health questions.”

According to a recent article in the Chicago Sun-Times, the company has an ulterior motive. The health guide keeps customers from taking up valuable time with pharmacists for routine issues, allowing them to provide more one-on-one care with patients.

The health guide app on the iPads was prepared by M-Healthcoach, another Chicago-based company. M-Healthcoach CEO Aamer Ghaffar said that “We are trying to not only improve people’s quality of care, but also to reduce the patient load on doctors, pharmacies, and emergency rooms,” with iPad-based mobile health apps.

The health guides use the iPads to access information from government databases to physician ratings, and can also get full access to “blue button” medical records available to U.S. military personnel and government employees and retirees.

Walgreens employees use iPads to aid customers originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 03 Nov 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Most Sprint customers are happy to finally have the iPhone, but for some users, the experience has been less than stellar. A small, but growing number of Sprint customers are complaining of slow data speeds. So slow that Siri and other network-sensitive features won’t work.

These complaints started the same day the iPhone 4S was released and continue until today. A thread at Sprint’s community forums that chronicles the problem has almost 248,000 views and over 1,300 replies. It’s one of the top forum posts on Sprint’s public message board.

Sprint’s head of product development, Fared Adib told CNET that the carrier is aware of the complaints, but has not been able to reproduce the slowed data connections some users are reporting. Sprint is reportedly working with Apple to track down the problem, if there is one, and find out whether it is hardware or software-related. Once they have identified a root cause, the two companies can work on a fix. When an update is available, Adib said Sprint will get it out quickly to users who are affected by this problem.

Sprint struggles to replicate iPhone 4S users’ speed concern originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 03 Nov 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Steve Sande and I have been collaborating on “Talking to Siri,” an ebook that just recently hit the Kindle store. It’s a how-to that helps you get the most done with your Siri intelligent assistant. We’re sharing some of our favorite tips with TUAW readers.

Today, we’re looking at Siri’s ability to help you pick a place to eat, meet up with friends, and calculate your total at the end. Without further ado, here are eight ways Siri can help you dine.

1. Find restaurants. Tell Siri, “I’m in the mood for Ethiopian food,” or ask “What is the best Ethiopian food in Denver?” If you ask more generally, as in the first statement, Siri looks for business near you, sorted by distance: “I found 15 Ethiopian restaurants. 10 of them are fairly close to you.” If you search the city as a whole, Siri sorts by Yelp rating: “I’ve found 15 Ethiopian restaurants. I’ve sorted them by rating.”
2. Get directions. Once you’ve decided on a restaurant, tell Siri, “How do I get to ‘Queen of Sheba.'” Siri replies, “Here are directions to Queen of Sheba,” transferring you to the Google Maps application, with suggested routes laid out.
3. Meet up with friends. Ask Siri, “Where is Steve Sande?” Siri uses Find My Friends to see where Steve is — hopefully on the way to meet up with you and not too far away. Remember, you must log into your Find My Friends account to use this query. Your authenticated session will last for a good long time once you do so.
4. Understand the menu. Curious about something on the menu? Want to learn more before you order? Say, “Search for Ethiopian Injeera on the Web.” Siri doesn’t handle foreign phrases as well as you might hope, but Google does very good “Did you mean?” analysis, and can help you move from Siri’s interpretation to a solid web search about oddball food items.
5. Calculate sales tax. Once you’ve eaten, say, “How much is $18.95 plus Denver sales tax?” Siri uses the local city rate to add it to your tab.
6. Add a tip. A simple Siri request returns a list of tip amounts including 10%, 15%, 18%, 20% and 25% of a given total. Say, “What is tip on $20.41?” You can also say “What is an 18% tip on $86.74 for four people?” in case you want to split the bill.
7. Find a dessert place nearby. Say, “Where can we go for dessert?” Siri searches through Yelp reviews to find mentions of desserts and lists them (along with their reviews) sorted by proximity. “I’ve found a number of restaurants whose reviews mention desserts fairly close to you.”
8. Get home safely. Once you’re done with your evening, tell Siri, “Take me home.” Siri provides directions to your home address. If you say, “I’m drunk,” Siri will find you taxi cab listings to help you travel in a safe and responsible manner.

Eight cool ways to dine with Siri originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 03 Nov 2011 11:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Fast Company has a great article on striking it rich on the app store. They bring up a good point about how software failures are no long major news stories like they were 20 – 30 years ago.

Many people think just because you get an app on the App Store does not mean you are going to see money rolling in. For every ‘Tiny Wings’ or ‘Doodle Jump’ there are thousands of developers whose app will not make a single penny.

So why is the app store more popular?

One theory is that we enjoy the strange psychological lure of uncertainty. Researchers have discovered that we often find relationships more compelling if the object of our affection is mysterious and non-committal. The image of a girl sat on a lawn picking petals from a flower and musing, “He loves me, he loves me not” is a fairly accurate depiction of a developer’s relationship with Apple. On one hand the girl with the flower hopes that “he” loves her, but on the other hand a lot of the fun is down to not knowing. It’s human nature that we are attracted to the thrill of never being quite sure where fortune will smile, and there are few businesses where that feeling is more acute than iOS development. Everything about the process is uncertain.

The article is a great read. Check it out.

Source: Striking It Rich In The App Store: For Developers, It’s More Casino Than Gold Mine