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iPhone Dev-Team has announced that RedSn0w is getting a major update very soon. Musclenerd of the dev team has tweeted screenshots of the upcoming new version of RedSn0w, which clearly shows cool new…
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Welcome to the site, and to another edition of the best resouces in iOS development. Featuring the iPad and iPhone developer resources from this site in the last week in order of popularity.
If you listen to the tech sites, it looks like the iOS 5 GM seed should be coming very soon, and if they’re right this means an early October release of the iPhone 5. So exciting times should bee soon ahead!
This week’s resources include an assortment of open source libraries, examples, and tutorials along with news of some new free services for iOS developers.
Here are the resources:
1. Tutorial: Develop An Angry Birds Like Game With Cocos2D And Box2D Step-By-Step – A great tutorial detailing how to create a working physics shooter style game similar to hit iOS games such as Angry Birds.
2. Tutorial: Easy Asynchronus UITableViewCell’s With Blocks And GCD – A very quick to implement tip to make your UITableViewCell’s asynchronous with sample code.
3. Example: iOS App Demonstrating Basic Usage Of The OpenCV Library – An app store app that has been open sourced that utilizes the OpenCV library.
4. Open Source: Boilerplate for iOS Apps Released With A Multitude Of Useful Code – A new project to create a useful resource for iOS developers that is inspired by the popular HTML5 boilerplate.
5. Tool: Debug Web Pages Viewed In The iOS Browser Remotely With Firebug Like Ease – An extremely useful tool that allows you to interactively debug web pages on your desktop while viewing them on your iOS device.
6. Tutorial: Get Ogre3D Running On iPhone And Build An Xcode 4 Ogre3D Template – A step-by-step guide on getting the Ogre3D graphics engine running on iPhone – and how to adapt the Mac template for building on the iOS platform.
7. Open Source: Library Allowing For Automatic Synchronization Between Portrait And Landscape Views – A project that allows you to create separate portrait and landscape views, and easily synchronize the two views without needing to write any adjustment code.
8. News: TestFlight Adds New Free Services To Make App Testing Easier – TestFlight has added a multitude of services free of charge to make testing easier such as in app updates, crash reporting, and in app questions.
Thanks for reading, please bookmark and share this post!
©2011 iPhone, iOS 4, iPad SDK Development Tutorial and Programming Tips. All Rights Reserved.
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I’ve mentioned in the extremely useful OpenCV library, and tutorials on usage and install. Getting started with OpenCV can be difficult, but can be key if you’re looking to do any sort of image processing on the iOS platform.
I’ve come across an application that actually already is in the app store and provides a good example for those looking to use the Open Computer Vision library. The app uses the edging algorithm along with some tweeks to make things more efficient and provide real time edge detection on the iPhone.
The application is Edgy and you find the application on iTunes here:
Edgy on iTunes
You can find the source code on the Google Code page here:
http://code.google.com/p/edgy-camera-ios/
The app has been added to the open source iOS apps listing. Looks like this could be of great help if you are looking to get started with OpenCV.
©2011 iPhone, iOS 4, iPad SDK Development Tutorial and Programming Tips. All Rights Reserved.
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I’ve mentioned some great multi-purpose open source libraries lately such as the massive Cooliris toolkit, and the up and coming Three20 replacement library Nimbus.
And I’ve come across a new project that looks like it could become something every bit as useful as those great libraries.
This project is somewhat different in that it is not a library or a framework, but rather the potential starting point for an iOS app including many popular open source iOS libraries such as JSONKit, and ASIHttpRequest along with adaptable code snippets. Including functionality for as asynchronous downloading, swipeable table view cells, map annotation and more.
The project is the iOS boiler plate and you can find it on Github here:
https://github.com/gimenete/iOS-boilerplate
You can read more details on what is currently included on the homepage here:
iOS Boilerplate
It looks like the project is off to a great start.
©2011 iPhone, iOS 4, iPad SDK Development Tutorial and Programming Tips. All Rights Reserved.
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The Tokyo Game Show is currently going on in Japan, and here’s some news from there that us old school gamers will appreciate: Square Enix is planning on bringing my absolute favorite console RPG ever, Chrono Trigger, over to iOS. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of information on when it’ll be out or what’s changed from the original (there was a DS version released a few years ago), but I’ll wait — Chrono Trigger is good enough to play through yet again no matter what’s different.
There are a few other titles also coming to the iPhone and iPad — Final Fantasy Legends is on its way over, as is Dragon Quest Monsters. It’s unclear exactly what Legends is — it appears to be a new entry in the mobile realm for the Final Fantasy franchise, and nothing to do with the great old GameBoy game Final Fantasy Legend. Dragon Quest Monsters is of course the spin-off series from Enix’s Dragon Quest series, so it’ll be nice to have that on Apple’s platform as well.
And there’s even more — a card battle game called Diffusion Million Arthur (your guess is as good as ours on that one), a board game called Itadaki Street, and even a card battling game in conjuction with Epic Games (!) called Demon’s Source are all due out at some point. Hopefully all of those will eventually land on the iOS store here in North America. That Epic/Square Enix collab especially sounds really interesting.
Square bringing Chrono Trigger, others to iOS (and Android) originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sat, 17 Sep 2011 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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If you haven’t played Portal yet, now is your chance. Valve is offering the Mac and PC versions of the 2007 physics-based puzzle game that took the world by storm for free on Steam until September 20.
Valve is giving the game away in honor of its Learn with Portals program. The educational program hopes to leverage the way video games are increasingly playing a role in education by using Portal and Portal 2 to teach physics and critical thinking skills to students. According to Valve:
One of the biggest challenges in teaching science, technology, engineering, and math is capturing the students’ imaginations long enough for them to see all of the possibilities that lie ahead.
Using interactive tools like the Portal series to draw them in makes physics, math, logic, spatial reasoning, probability, and problem-solving interesting, cool, and fun which gets us one step closer to our goal-engaged, thoughtful kids!
Education or not, the game is addictive and fun as can be. Be sure to grab it before the 20th while it’s still free!
Hat tip to Lex Friedman.
Valve offering original Portal for free until September 20 originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sat, 17 Sep 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Last week I gave the opening keynote at the amazing Update 2011 conference in Brighton, and had a fantastic time. An incredible mix of talented and engaging speakers and attendees, and a focus on user experience throughout, made it a wonderful event that I’m still buzzing from.
I speak at conferences fairly regularly, and at almost every one I’m approached by someone who’s considering doing some public speaking themselves, or has already agreed to do so, looking for tips. I decided to write up a few of my thoughts on the subject here.
This is my own tried and tested checklist for speaking in front of people, whether it’s forty, four hundred or four thousand.
Rehearse fully. Don’t just rehearse sections of your presentation; you have to start a timer, then give the entire presentation at normal speed, complete with all your jokes, anecdotes, examples and so forth. If you screw something up, just keep going. If you take no other advice, just rehearse.
If you find the presentation is running long or short, cut something out or add new material, and rehearse again (and remember that you’ll do it faster on the actual day, so don’t cut too much). Repeat the process until it’s the right length. Now you have your actual, final presentation – rehearse that fully at least 3 times. You’ll deal with 95% of all presentation problems by following that tip.
Make eye contact with your audience. Don’t just read; you should have rehearsed enough that you don’t need to read anything except the occasional cue. Try never to read from the screen behind you, unless you’re making a point by physically turning to it and pointing.
Don’t do demos unless you really have to and are extremely sure it’ll work. Don’t demo anything that isn’t under your complete control. Don’t do demos that need a fast/reliable network connection. Don’t do demos that require the audience to also be on a reliable network connection.
If you must demo, you need to rehearse in the actual venue. If your demo involves networking, try to get a private connection that isn’t shared by the audience. Otherwise, may the gods of technology smile upon you (and be ready to fill in if it just doesn’t work at all).
Of course, if you’re a pro then you can certainly make live demos work (I’ve certainly seen any number of them), but you should only try if you’re really sure it’ll go well.
Don’t write code during a presentation. You can show some code if really necessary, but it’s better to distill the essentials into a slide, suitably syntax-coloured and annotated. Don’t ever debug during a presentation. Stick to ideas, slides and charisma wherever feasible.
Again, you can do it if you know you can make it work (Seb certainly did at Update, for example), but unless you’re doing a tutorial/workshop/how-to sort of session, consider whether it might be better to focus on the message.
Don’t just serve up slides loaded with bullet points; add some variety. If you really need to deliver a slide with 6 bullet points, use 3 instead and just say the other 3. Your audience wants to be engaged. Your slides are just an aid to your presentation – they’re not the presentation itself.
Make yourself comfortable. There’s no rule that says you need to hug the lectern for the whole hour. Ask for a radio mic and a clicker and really use the stage. Wander around, speak to different parts of the audience, use your entire body.
Be dynamic. Point and mime and act and wave; put some energy into what you’re doing, and your audience will reflect it back onto you. I resist lectern-bound presentations whenever possible.
Remember that in almost all presentations, you’re making points rather than conveying data or teaching specific APIs. Make sure your argument is clear and convincing; they can look up the details afterwards. Your audience will forgive everything but an unclear message.
As with everything in life, care about what you’re doing. Any topic that people will attend a presentation on is a topic worth caring about! Do your research, figure out your position, and put it forward with enthusiasm. Even put forward both/multiple sides, but make sure it’s with every bit as much enthusiasm.
No matter how dry the subject, try to inject some humour, whether it’s a joke or a funny photo from the internet. Personal anecdotes work well, particularly if they’re self-effacing. They don’t have to be true, as long as they’re funny!
During lengthy and/or technical presentations, it’s OK to take a break in the middle for a digression – it can be as tenuous as you like, and it’ll keep people’s interest up. It’s also usually alright to be cheeky (but check for precedent, and/or ask the conference organisers, before using too much profanity).
Watch yourself speak (or at least listen). Most conferences are recorded, and you should watch the video when you get it afterwards. Consider recording a rehearsal at home first. Be aware of your tone of voice, any ticks/mannerisms, and your body language.
We all have odd habits when we’re speaking, and the audience will forgive almost anything, but try to minimise any very noticeable eccentricities. If you do nothing else, at least try not to clear your throat too often.
Relax beforehand, and consider your physical needs. Get some sleep the night before. Don’t rehearse after 8pm. Have a drink if you need to, or take a bath; do whatever you do to relax. Pack your suitcase early if you’re travelling. If you aren’t asleep after an hour, get up and do something else for a little while then try again – don’t just lie there.
On the day of the event, make sure you eat (sugar is good), but don’t stuff yourself. Don’t rehearse again, except your opening if you feel you need to. Drink plenty, and use the bathroom before you’re going on stage. Have some water handy during your presentation; nobody will mind if you pause to take a drink, and it’ll keep your voice working properly.
When you walk on stage, break the tension. Say good morning loudly, and insist on a response! Make a (positive) remark about the venue, or ask if anyone is hungover from the night before. Tell a joke. Ask for a show of hands about something.
Whatever trick you use, just do something to make yourself comfortable on stage, and make the audience comfortable with you. They’re eager to like you and they want to hear what you have to say. Remember that!
Then there’s the usual stuff: try to stay calm, but remember that nervousness is normal and healthy. Try to enjoy the experience. If you’re very nervous, remember it’s only a small period of time on one day, and it’ll be over before you know it.
You wouldn’t have been asked if someone didn’t think you could pull it off, and you really can. And remember: when you’re on stage, you usually can’t see more than the first few rows of people anyway – it’s really true.
Get your message straight, rehearse it until you could do it during a power cut, get up there and get it done. You’ll feel amazing afterwards.
And next time you’re asked, say yes to that event too. There’s nothing like practice.
In this Quick Look, we’re highlighting gRadar. The developer describes gRadar as a fast and reliable weather app that provides worldwide radar images, five-day weather forecasts and observations on an interactive map (Google Maps).
The perfect app for outsiders and travelers alike, gRadar can be animated for up to twelve hours of rain/snow radar images so you can accurately tell if precipitation or storms are coming your way.
Read on for more information and screenshots!
gRadar
Here are the top five features you can expect to see in the latest version:
Requirements: iOS 4.1
Price: $1.99
Developer: NBZ
Would you like to see us write a full review of gRadar? Have your say in our poll:
Would you like to see gRadar reviewed in-depth on AppStorm?
Quick Look posts are paid submissions offering only a brief overview of an app. Vote in the poll if you think this app is worth an in-depth AppStorm review! If you’re a developer and would like to have your app profiled, you can submit it here.
Now that Fall is just about here, for sports fans, that means one thing: football! For me as a sports fan, it also means other things. The baseball season is wrapping up, the PGA Tour is heading to the “silly” season, and yes, even the MLS is starting to wrap up.
With not having cable TV in our house and always being out and about, I needed an iPhone app to stay on top of all of my different teams and sports, as well as the latest scores and highlights. Sportacular is an app that does a lot of the things that I need and want and works really well, for the most part. Let me show you around.
Any sports fan that is not near a television always wants to know what the score is. It is the universal question that is asked when you first see someone watching a game, regardless of who is playing. Sportacular gives you a couple of different ways to catch up on your sports.
The main page is where you can see the latest scores from any sport that you choose. Sportacular covers just about every major professional sport in America (NFL, NBA, Golf, NHL, MLS, Nascar and Tennis). You can also get scores from a handful of the European Soccer leagues. You pick the sport and Sportacular will display the scores from that sport for a particular day.
Main Page
Sportacular also offers a different way for you to find out what the score is to your favorite game. You can set alerts from within the app to alert you of the score. In fact, not only can you set alerts for the latest score of a game, you can set a variety of alerts. Say you want to know when your favorite team scores or when their opponent scores, or what the score is at halftime or at the end of the game. You can set custom alerts to let you know when just about anything happens.
Setting Alerts for a team and for a specific game
One of the best things about watching sports is watching it with others — you never want to watch the big game by yourself. Sportacular feels the same way about using their app. They have built in some social aspects into the app with Facebook Connect and a handful of other things to enhance the experience.
When using the app you can create a Sportacular profile, which you can connect with your Facebook account. For some reason when I tried to do this, I was unable to connect and got an error. That’s too bad, because I really would have liked to see how this worked.
A couple of other things you can do to connect socially are called My Picks and My Check-ins. With My Picks, you can pick a winner in just about any game that is on Sportacular and the app keeps track of how many wins and losses you have. There is even a leaderboard that shows the top pickers. With My Check-ins, you can “check in” to a sporting event. You can check-in if you are either at the actual game or if you are just following a certain game, whether it is on TV or on the app itself.
Screenshot of My Picks and Check-Ins Page
As a sports fan, you want to impress your friends with the latest standings, stats and player info. Sportacular has got you covered in this department as well.
You always want to know where your team stands in comparison to the others, and so Sportacular has given Standings its own tab within the app. And it does exactly that: it gives you standings for all of the team sports that are featured on the app.
Sportacular does a great job with stats. They don’t overwhelm you, but they give you enough to get by. You can look up the stats of your favorite team and see what their stats are for the season or for the last game they played. Sportacular also lets you see stats for players on a specific team as well.
Stats for team and for individual players
And lastly, any sports geek always wants to know what else is going on in the world of sports for that day. With the News section you can read all the latest and greatest that is going on for any sport that is featured on Sportacular. You can also click on any sports team and see the latest score, news and schedule.
Snapshot of the News Page
You can get Sportacular in a few different flavors, and the one I reviewed is the free version. There is also a pro version that you can purchase for $1.99, which takes out the ads. In both versions you can also get in-app purchases to enhance the usability of the app. And lastly, there is an iPad app that is free.
My overall feeling is that this is a pretty good app and it has a lot of great features, but it could use some work. For one, I would love to see the app get faster; the app can be very slow at times. Secondly, I would like to see Facebook Connect actually work so that I can utilize the social aspect of the app better. I think if these two things can get fixed, the app will be go from good to great.
They say that the best tool for the job is the one you have with you, and when it comes to giving a presentation, that’s what Keynote for the iPhone is all about. Instead of lugging your laptop all over the place just to handle a presentation, instead all you need is your iPhone and a projector adapter cable and you’re good to go. Plus, your amazing technical skills could really impress the boss.
In this, the final installment in our iWork on the iPhone series, we’ll get into just how functional Keynote for the iPhone is, and whether or not its made the transition to the mobile arena well, or if there are still a few more kinks to be worked out. Find out after the jump.
The Keynote interface is separated into three main functionality areas: browsing and opening presentations; creating and editing presentations; and viewing presentations. When opening the application you’ll see the presentations view. This is a thumbnail view of all of the presentations that you have currently saved on your iPhone. The view is very much in the same vein as many other Apple products, in that it’s simple, clean and very easy to use to navigate through your presentations quickly.
View all your presentations
The portion of Keynote where you’ll no doubt spend the most time is actually building and editing your presentations. If you’ve ever worked with Keynote on a Mac, or any other presentation software for that matter, you’ll feel right at home using the Keynote interface. You’ll see a scrollable list of thumbnails of the slides that have been created on the left hand side, and the slide you’re currently working on in the main window. The functions to interact with your presentation are accessed by buttons at the top of the screen. Tapping on elements on the slide itself allow you to work with aspects of your slides. It’s certainly a small interface, but much to my surprise, it is actually quite easy to use.
Modifying the style of text
You’ll be able to play your presentation on your iPhone as well. This can be useful for checking how your presentation works and could also be used to actually present if connected to a larger display. Tapping on the screen will advance to the next slide, swiping to the left will take you back one slide, tapping on the far left side will slide out a thumbnail list of all the slides in the presentation, and double-tapping on the display will take you back to presentation editing mode.
Playing a presentation
The application is capable of quite a bit and I have to say that it was extremely easy to learn. It’s designed so that it just makes sense. What I mean is that whenever I was confused about how to accomplish a specific task I would just do what I thought should work and it almost always did. Being built by Apple it is essentially a model iOS application and utilizes iOS and the hardware perfectly. It is quick, easy, useful and fun.
Edit mode
I think the best way to give you a feel for how the application works is to just run through some of the functionality. We’ll work through the sample presentation that has been created for you to help you learn the application.
Starting at the presentation screen, any presentation you’ve created can be accessed by tapping on the corresponding thumbnail. Creating or importing a presentation is as easy as tapping the plus icon in the upper left-hand corner of the display. Starting a new presentation will take you to a screen where you can select one of a dozen templates to start from. All the templates are in Apple flavor and tastefully done.
Open a presentation or start a new one
This view and functionality of editing a presentation is very much like any other presentation applications on your computer. You’ll find the thumbnails of all the slides in your presentation on the left side of the screen. You can swipe through the slides and tap the one you’d like to work on to activate it. Adding a new slide is as simple as tapping on the plus sign below the thumbnails, then you’ll get to select a layout within the theme you are using. There are a nice variety of layouts to choose from so you should be able to find a solid starting point for any new slide. If not, you can certainly customize it.
Picking a template to start a new slide
The amount of functionality when working with slides is almost surprising, but it really isn’t difficult at all. If you tap on an image you can manipulate it. If you tap on text you can edit it. Inserting images, charts, graphs or shapes is as simple as tapping the ever-common insert image button. Tap on the wrench to get to more settings and adjustments. You get the picture. Working with your slides and presentations is extremely intuitive and very easy to figure out.
Tapping on an image to edit
This is the last of the iWork for the iPhone review series and I’d say it is probably the most useful from an actual production standpoint. It’s very possible to get some actual work done with this application on your iPhone. As we’ve mentioned with Pages and Numbers, they’ll probably find their biggest value in those emergency type situations, but it is not unrealistic to say that it is very possible to create a completely professional presentation using Keynote on your iPhone.
Priced at $9.99, it is a fairly expensive iPhone application comparatively speaking. It is, however, iPad compatible as well so if you have an iPad you’ll be getting two apps for the price of one. That always makes the cost easier to take. Pages and Numbers are a bit more on the viewing side of the fence. In my opinion Keynote is a little different and can actually be used to create. While it may not be as high powered as the desktop version, it is very capable and some may even find the experience more enjoyable. With that in mind, if you’re someone that has the need to give presentations it is absolutely worth the cost and even if you’re not I could still recommend it. Maybe you’ll be like me and after a little Keynote for iPhone time be thinking of more opportunities for using presentations.
Happy Friday, game fans! We’ve missed bringing you your weekly dose of fresh fun from the App Store, so it’s time to dive back in with a new batch of titles — and as an added bonus, almost all of this week’s selection are universal!
Click through and let’s get our game on.
Since levelling up is a good way to start any day, we’ll begin with Pocket RPG. This 3D fantasy adventure has a lot of amazing features going for it, and many of our favourite features from other titles have been incorporated as well, making for a deep and rewarding gameplay experience.
Making use of the dual-stick control scheme, you’ll control one of 3 character classes through randomly generated dungeon quests that will pit you against legions of enemies, bosses and traps. Oh, and loot. There’s always loot! Particular attention has been paid to the item system, ensuring that the things you pick up have actual gameplay value and can turn the tide in a battle. This is a hack-and-slash game, but if you want to play it smart you most certainly can.
The pace is quick, with refinements like automatic stat progression (based on how you play and what items you use) ensuring that you never have to waste time elbow-deep in menus and character sheets. It’s not the cheapest thing in the App Store, but the amount of content and its quality justifies the premium price tag for those serious about their mobile gaming. If you grab it, make sure you have some time on your hands, because you won’t want to put it down.
Price: $4.99
Developer: Crescent Moon Games
Download: App Store
It seems like just the other day we were talking about the original To-Fu: The Trials of Chi, an original and entertaining puzzle game developed by HotGen. They recently surprised fans with the sequel, hot on the heels of the original, and it’s clear that they’ve still got the spark. To-Fu 2 may be familiar, but it pushes the envelope and offers more than just a new set of levels.
For starters, there are a bunch of new traps and platforms (including really fun new diagonal rebound blocks), and a new game mode to enjoy. The time trial mode is a race to collect as much Chi as possible before the time runs out, and it opens up another avenue of Game Center competition. In the new shop, you’re now able to purchase costumes and Dojo themes as well, though these have no effect on gameplay so you’re welcome to avoid them if you’re not interested.
Whether or not To-Fu 2 deserves to be a fully independent sequel is open for debate, though the amount of new content and polish certainly seems to justify its status — and perhaps HotGen is onto something, marketing-wise, with releasing sequels instead of level packs? Fans of the original will hardly need to think twice though.
Price: $0.99
Developer: HotGen Ltd.
Download: App Store
Speaking of unexpectedly quick follow-ups, everyone’s favourite pixelated micromanagement gurus — the folks at Kairosoft — have put out a brand new “Story” for us to enjoy. This time, you’re responsible for managing a racing team and developing your drivers and staff until you can win.
Anyone familiar with Kairosoft’s previous titles (Game Dev Story, Mega Mall Story, etc.) will feel right at home with the cute graphics, tiny UI elements and unexpectedly addictive gameplay. As with their previous games, the developers have managed to ensure that one doesn’t require any actual knowledge of these businesses in order to play the game successfully — you’ll learn everything you need to along the way, and the learning is perfectly paced so as to disappear into the gameplay itself.
Unfortunately, the game is still iPhone-only, so while it’s terrific that new titles keep emerging, those who were hoping for HD updates of older ones continue to be patiently disappointed. Regardless, this is another winner — it almost goes without saying — and the racing environment offers plenty of twists on the established formula to help keep things from getting stale. Well worth a look.
Price: $2.99
Developer: Kairosoft Co., Ltd
Download: App Store
The world of arcade racing also saw a shining new entry in the form of Warp Dash, a truly beautiful and madly engaging title where it’s just you, your ship and an endless track filled with increasingly tricky-to-avoid obstacles.
Having an endless (and randomly generated) track not only means that each time you play you get something different, it also means that your true goal isn’t to “reach the end” or to “beat the level.” Instead, your goal becomes to simply improve your skill and become an expert so that you can survive longer, race faster and get more impressive air as you collect triangles. The accelerometer controls are responsive and the design remains easy on the eyes even at breakneck speeds, so you never feel like you’re dashing through a blurry landscape.
This is a challenging game, but it’s also one of the most rewarding and compelling that we’ve played in a long time and those who enjoy old school arcade racing, or just a legitimate skill-based challenge, will find Warp Dash worth a play.
Rounding off this week’s picks is one final universal title, this time a platformer. Fruity Jelly is a comfortable, colourful and tricky entry in the genre that uses its accelerometer controls to make you not only tilt, but also rotate your iPhone to collect all the fruit.
This 3D motion control works well and introduces more challenge into an otherwise familiar sort of platforming environment. Slick artwork and smooth performance help keep the experience feeling tight and immersive, and it’s easy to find yourself uttering those “just one more level” sentiments as you get the hang of the controls.
It may not be the largest or the more innovative title in the platforming genre, but with its interesting new controls and solid presentation values, Fruity Jelly is an easy game to like.
Enjoy this week’s titles and come back next week too as we resume our regular schedule. And since you’ve had a few weeks of solo gaming, drop us a comment below and tell us what fun stuff you’ve found!
If you’re always on the lookout for a great iPhone note-taking app, search no more: Elements is an excelent app that makes it easy to take notes on-the-go, sync them automatically to Dropbox and supports Markdown, an extremely practical way to format documents.
In this review, I’ll walk you through every feature this app has to offer, ranging from the already mentioned Dropbox synchronization, to exporting your documents to HTML and PDF.
You’re going to need a Dropbox account to use Elements. Dropbox is a great service, and even has a free 2GB plan to get started, so go ahead and grab yourself an account if you haven’t already. Once that’s done, fire up Elements, and login using your Dropbox credentials. The app will automatically create a folder on your Dropbox called “Elements,” where all the documents you create with the app will be stored from now on.
Startup Screen and File Manager
Tapping on the icon on the lower right corner creates your first note. The first thing to do is to write the title of the note, which also acts as the file name.
You can then immediately start writing. Elements uses a special way to format text called Markdown, which allows you to create headings, bold and italic words, lists and even URLs. The idea behind Markdown is that you don’t have to use keyboard shortcuts or press buttons to achieve a specific format, you just write special characters that are later converted to whatever format corresponds. This way, the text you write is understandable even before being exported. The simplest way to learn the basics of Markdown is to check the “Welcome” file that comes with Elements, or you can check this blog post for more info.
Creating a new file and checking some statistics
While writing, you can get some information about your file such as word and character count, for example. Just tap on the first icon on the bottom to reveal a list of information about the file. Another cool feature is the Scratchpad, which, as the app itself describes, “is a great place to jot down quick ideas, store paragraphs you want to get out of the way, or just make a note for yourself later on.” To get to this feature, tap on the fourth icon on the bottom.
There are a few things you can customize while writing. Tapping on the second icon on the bottom lets you customize the font, text color and size. For me, the defaults are fine. The default font is actually beautiful, I really like it, and changing the font color to anything but black seems to break the app’s overall beauty.
Customizing the font, text size and color
If you’re working with markdown, you’ll probably want to make sure periodically that you didn’t commit a formatting mistake, like putting something in bold when you meant italics, or something like that. Luckily, Elements comes with a preview feature. Tap on the star button at the bottom to get an instant preview of your text.
Previewing your file
Another very cool feature is the ability to export your notes to PDF and HTML, send them as attachments, send your note as a HTML email, or publish them to Facebook or Tumblr. You can even print them using AirPrint. Just tap on the lower right button to reveal a menu.
Tapping on export lets you save a PDF or HTML file on Dropbox (which will ask you then to choose a folder), Evernote, email and iTunes.
Exporting your notes
There isn’t much to configure on Elements. You can change the sorting order for the files, whether to show the files’ extensions and change what the default file extension should be for new files. I prefer to use “markdown” as the extension since I really like that format, although you can use whatever you like. Note that you can use Markdown formatting no matter what file extension you’re using.
Element's settings
Other settings include disabling the automatic spelling checker, and the ability to log out of your Dropbox account.
Elements is a great app. Its interface is simple, elegant and beautiful, all at the same time. It has all the features one might want and need for writing.
I did find some minor issues with it though: you can’t move your files between folders, meaning you’ll need to rely on a computer with access to the same Dropbox account to better organize your files; and exporting to PDF does not render the Markdown format, i.e. it just exports the raw text, which is something I didn’t expect. Besides that, there are some minor issues with the interface, but they’re barely noticeable. I do wish one could choose which folder Elements uses to sync with Dropbox. It would be great to sync my school and work folders with the app, and not just the “Elements” folder.
Considering all this, it’s still a solid app, and I’m pretty sure the issues described above are already being worked on. Plus, I also read on the app’s description that they’re working on integrating more services for publishing (apart from Facebook and Tumblr).
On a final note, you might be surprised to know that this review was written almost entirely on my iPhone using Elements!
Happy weekend! There are a whole bunch of great iOS apps on sale (and some even free) this weekend, so if you need something fun to play on your iPhone or iPad, look no further:
All great deals on the App Store this weekend. There’s never any shortage of great apps to buy!
Free and sale apps on iOS this weekend originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 16 Sep 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Other sites have rumors and speculation. We have the TUAW braintrust. We put the question to you and let you have your go at it. Today’s topic is Windows 8. Will Microsoft’s newest operating system prove a threat to Apple’s OS X or iOS?
The touch-friendly Windows 8 operating system has been heavily overhauled for greater stability and user friendliness. High resolution (think Retina for Microsoft) models may ship sometime in the next 12-18 months, with high touch accuracy, optimized finger control precision, and more.
Features like Picture Password, which invites users to draw on pictures with a known set of shapes and lines for authentication (e.g. add a mustache on Mom and a hat on Dad) and a brilliantly colored tiled Start Screen, all add to Windows 8’s appeal.
Should Apple be worried?
You tell us. Place your vote in this poll and then join in the comments with all your predictions.
You’re the Pundit: Windows 8 originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 16 Sep 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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We usually feature Mac apps on the Mac App Store in this series, but Appalicious is an exception. While not available on the MAS, it helps you browse the store in various ways that make the experience much more efficient and even fun. If you’re a bargain hunter you’ll find digging through sales and freebies has never been easier.
Appalicious is a front end to a database for searching, sorting and filtering apps. The toolbar at the top features preset searches and sorting methods. These alone are worth the price of admission (which we’ll talk about in a moment), because you’ll easily be able to find the latest and greatest apps, on sale or otherwise. You’ll also find a handy Recent menu and easy access to your store favorites. One wonders why Apple doesn’t do these things in the official store already. Also, as data is pulled fresh from the App Store, searching in Appalicious is often better than browsing around the actual store.
All of these searches and sorts can be customized, and you can even build advanced filters to further hone in on exactly the apps you want to see. For example, within seconds I was able to find a business card app that was on sale and in English. A handy right-click menu allows me to add the app to my wish list, which also exists as a drop-down menu. Appalicious has plenty of different ways to nail down exactly the app you want, all of which make it easy to use and quite powerful. Another drop down menu, for example, allows you to see everything about the currently selected app, including take you to their web site or support page. That’s quite handy.
While you can download Appalicious for free, the service itself (downloading the fresh database) costs money after one week. After that free week, you’ll have to pay $12.95 per year. The site notes a $5 discount by using the code “INTRO,” but check here to see if it is still available. Also check out the training videos to see if Appalicious is right for you. TidBITS has a more thorough description of the database advantages. If you rarely buy Mac apps, perhaps Appalicious isn’t worth it. But if you love finding bargains (easily done, given the ability to search by price and even monitor app prices over time), it pays for itself rather quickly.
Daily Mac App: Appalicious originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 16 Sep 2011 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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