Category: I-phone

Google Music beta lets you upload your music library to Google’s servers and stream the content to web-connected devices like your computer or Android handset, but not iOS. Several months after launch, the service now supports iOS via a web app optimized for the iPhone, iPod touch and the iPad.

The app isn’t as pretty as the native application on Android or the web app for desktops, but it’s functional. You can browse your music library via artist or album. Controls are intuitive and the player is responsive, especially when you consider each track is being streamed over the Internet. Music will play in the background while you browse your online music catalog and will even continue to play when you switch to another application.

If you’re a Google Music beta user, you can check out the iOS web app by pointing mobile Safari music.google.com.

[Via Engadget]

Google Music beta ready for iOS originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 09 Sep 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A rumor from Bloomberg suggests Sprint will sell the iPhone 5 with an unlimited data plan. The #3 wireless carrier in the US could use this plan to lure customers from competitors AT&T and Verizon Wireless. These two competing carriers already sell the iPhone with tiered data plans. If this rumor pans out, it’ll leave T-Mobile as the one remaining US carrier without the iPhone. The absence of the iPhone on T-Mobile may not really matter as AT&T is in the process of buying the #4 wireless carrier.

Sprint, and the other wireless carriers, are expected to sell the iPhone 5 in mid-October. The next generation iPhone will likely be announced at Apple’s annual Fall music event a few weeks before it goes on sale.

Bloomberg: Sprint to sell iPhone with unlimited data originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 09 Sep 2011 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Every parent who has taken a long car trip or flight with offspring in tow knows that the difference between a pleasant journey and a stressful, tiring marathon may come down to one key factor: can you keep the kids entertained (and fed) through it? If so, everyone’s happier. This task is dramatically easier in the age of the iPad than it was before, but it’s still not easy to find apps that appeal to kids of different ages and interests.

The margin between a good children’s app and a great one may be narrow, but when you see kids on a long trip getting engaged with an app for solid stretches — without flipping back to cartoons, without taking Angry Birds/Peggle/Call of Atlantis breaks, and with a high degree of creativity and enthusiasm — chances are you’re dealing with a great app. The $2.99 PlayTime Theater doesn’t have a high degree of visual polish, and its interface can be somewhat quirky and confusing; nevertheless, I think it’s one of the most impressive kids’ apps for the platform that I’ve seen in a long time.

The concept of PlayTime Theater is simple, and that’s what makes it so effective. The app presents a castle ‘set,’ complete with drawbridge, catapult and other necessities. You can populate the set with virtual puppets (knights, princesses, dragons, the entire medieval menagerie), assign them props, change their costumes and looks (including custom faces built from your photo library), and position them where you want.

Once your backstage preparations are complete, you start the show. Switching into Record mode and clicking the big red button allows you to populate one of twelve show slots with a two-minute puppet show that you control. Move the characters around the stage as you (and your kid sister) give voice to each role; tap the puppets to activate their props, use the other controls to play sound effects or music, and more. Once the play is done, you can watch it with the voices and sounds perfectly synchronized to the action.

Like I said, it’s a simple idea, and there’s nothing fancy about the visuals, but I’ve rarely seen an app that so completely captured the attention of my 10-year-old and six-year-old daughters in a matter of moments. I didn’t even introduce it to them — they found it, and they were off. You might have to clarify the button functions for younger kids the first time through, but they will be composing epic shows in no time. It’s not just fun for the younger set, either; the friend who introduced me to the app says he uses it to create mini-epics by animating snippets of business conference calls.

The app thoughtfully includes a link to the developer’s YouTube channel with demo videos and sample recordings; these do help clarify the interface. You can read more about the app at the PlayTime Theater website, where it’s noted that future versions will offer more backgrounds and additional varied characters.

If your kids enjoy creative play and storytelling, you can’t go wrong with PlayTime Theater. There is no bigger bargain to be had on the App Store than trading $3 for hours of peaceful traveling children who will be eager to show you their seatback masterpieces.

Hat tip to Myke L.

Daily iPad App: PlayTime Theater originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 09 Sep 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Earlier we reported that the Apple Store was down in the U.S. and the U.K (at least). A few hours later, the store came back online. At first, we didn’t notice any changes, but in fact, Apple has introduced an iPad purchasing wizard.

The wizard breaks down the process of choosing the spec of the iPad you’d like to buy into three very simple steps. First, choose the color of your iPad. Second, choose how much storage you’d like your iPad to have and finally, select either a Wi-Fi or a Wi-Fi plus 3G model. If you choose a 3G model, you’ll be taken to an additional step, which offers a choice of carrier.

Though the previous method wasn’t exactly complicated, the new wizard certainly does make it much simpler to select what specifications you’d like, and change them with ease if you change your mind.

The new shopping wizard only seems to apply to the iPad. The online purchasing process for Macs, iPhones and everything else is unchanged.

[Via The Next Web]

Apple adds iPad purchasing wizard to online store originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 09 Sep 2011 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Whether or not a prototype iPhone 5 was actually stolen from a San Francisco bar, the story has caused a media stir as anticipation for the handset rises. Combine that with the story of the pre-release iPhone 4 that disappeared in a California bar last year, and you’ve got a story ripe for parody.

Conan O’Brien has accepted the challenge and produced a parody iPhone commercial, in which enraged Apple employees demand the device’s return. They go on, in no uncertain terms, to describe the many ways they’ve devised to “punish” the thief.

This isn’t the first time Mr O’Brien’s poked a little fun at Apple and its products, and we’re sure it won’t be the last.

Check out the video below.

Conan O’Brien parodies iPhone 5 “loss” originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 09 Sep 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung was dealt a major setback today in Germany. A district court in Dusseldorf ruled that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is too similar to the iPad 2, and sales of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Germany will continue to be blocked. The decision also prevents Samsung’s German subsidiary from selling the tablet device elsewhere in the EU, though other Samsung divisions can sell in those countries.

Samsung confirmed it will appeal the decision and said via a spokesperson “We are disappointed with this ruling and believe it severely limits consumer choice in Germany.” Samsung still faces a similar case in Japan and the US. Undeterred by the ruling, Samsung and carrier NTT DoCoMo still plan to launch the launch tablet device next month.

German ban on Galaxy Tab 10.1 sales upheld originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 09 Sep 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you are new to the iOS it’s likely that you are or will spending a tremendous amount of time learning to work with the UITableView component, and the UIPickerView component. These two components are extremely useful, but can be difficult to work with as illustrated by the over 4,000 combined questions on Stack Overflow about these two components.

I’ve found an excellent tutorial that demonstrates how to build a thermostat building application with interactive tableview cells, and an integrated UIPickerView component in exhausting detail. There is an extensive amount of information on these tutorials and if you are seeking to master these components then you might want to check them out.

Included is full source code for the tutorial, and here’s a video showing the end result in action:

The concepts used in creating this app are explained in these 3 tutorials by Tom Thompson here:

Displaying Tabular Data On iPhones

Making Two-Way Tables On iOS

Improving Data Entry With UIPickers

These are some of the most in-depth tutorials I’ve seen on this topic covering not just what you need to know, but covering everythings in depth with many diagrams are provided.   If you are looking for a thorough guide that explains everything this is the ticket.

©2011 iPhone, iOS 4, iPad SDK Development Tutorial and Programming Tips. All Rights Reserved.

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I’ve kept a listing of open source iPhone apps for over two years now, the list has grown numbering listing over 50 apps that are in the app store.  Among those are several games, and certainly the most famous of those being Doom and Wolfenstein.

Recently the iOS versions of these classic games were updated most notably adding support for the retina display, and iPad.  The source code has also been re-released to include these updates — complete with the Xcode projects.

In the past the official download for the source files has gone down so if you’re interested in this I suggest downloading now so you don’t have to dig for a third party site later.

You can find the download links on the open source ios apps page and on the official announcement.

Interestingly enough in the readme for Wolfenstein 3D John Carmack states:

If anyone does build another quality commercial application based on this code, let us know, and we can probably do some kind of cross linking.

Sounds like there could be a great opportunity there.

[via Alex Curylo]

©2011 iPhone, iOS 4, iPad SDK Development Tutorial and Programming Tips. All Rights Reserved.

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I do enjoy Shadow Era, and Hothead’s Kard Combat is excellent as well, but my new favorite collectible card game on the App Store is Ascension, based on the real-life title by Gary Games. There’s a lot of similarities to the great card game Dominion, in that you build a deck up as you play the game, rather than having to rely on a pre-built deck. As you add new summons to your deck and “slay” monsters, you earn honor from a limited pool, eventually trying to finish the game with more honor than your opponent.

The game is well-balanced, and while strategy at the beginning of the game is pretty simple, it really ramps up as your deck is established, with different summons both affecting the cards you play and what kinds of powers you can earn as you go along. The cards are all hand-drawn, easy to read and look great. Once you figure out how to play (there’s an extensive tutorial to teach you), games move along at a solid pace. It’s an excellent card game, and quite original in terms of how it’s balanced and how it plays. And of course Game Center integration and asychronous multiplayer add a few solid selling points as well.

Ascension (subtitled Chronicle of the Godslayer) is available for US$4.99 as a universal app. If you are into these types of card games at all, definitely check it out.

Daily iPhone App: Ascension originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 09 Sep 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It took me a little while, but I finally last weekend updated to Lion, and so far … I think I like it. I kind of miss my old Spaces feature, and I did turn off reverse scrolling right away, but it does seem to run better than Snow Leopard, and Mission Control is pretty sweet. Another thing I’m not a huge fan of, however, is the new Finder sidebar — it’s pretty bland, and not quite as clear or useful as the one in Snow Leopard.

Fortunately, that’s pretty easy to fix, and ZDnet has a few good ways to do it. This SIMBL plugin will put a little color back in those icons, if you like, and you can do a little plist tweaking in Lion to switch around the order of the various devices and sources listed on the side of the screen. Finally, if you’re ending up with aliases in the Finder sidebar that lose the source they’re originally alias’ed from, you can drag-and-CMD-drop them to erase them once and for all.

Apple of course makes all of these changes with good intentions, and maybe there are good reasons to do things like drain all the color out of the interface (maybe it allows you to focus more on the important stuff: your files in the other window). But for those of us who like the old ways best, it’s good to know we’ve got options.

Three ways to change Lion’s Finder window sidebar originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 09 Sep 2011 06:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ah yes, our old friend — the Post-it of Unavailability. The Apple Store is down in the US, UK, Australia and presumably elsewhere as well.

Could be maintenance, could be something else (although it seems awfully early for the rumored Mac Pro refresh). We’ll know in a few hours, give or take.

Update: The store is back up with no apparent changes.

Apple Store down Thursday evening (Updated) originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 09 Sep 2011 00:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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For the fifth year in a row, Apple’s iPhone has taken top spot on the J.D. Power and Associates Smartphone Satisfaction Study. “Apple ranks highest among manufacturers of smartphones in customer satisfaction with a score of 795 and performs particularly well in ease of operation, operating system, features and physical design. Motorola (763) and HTC (762) follow Apple in the smartphone rankings,” according to the study.

J.D. Power’s study found that smartphone users cited different “key factors” for satisfaction:

1. Ease of operation (26%)
2. Operating system (24%)
3. Physical design (23%)
4. Features (19%)
5. Battery function (8%)

It’s perhaps in Apple’s favor that consumers assigned relatively little importance to battery function, as that was by far Apple’s worst rating — the only result it received that wasn’t a perfect 5 out of 5 stars. This probably comes as little surprise to anyone who uses an iPhone heavily throughout the day. In fact, the iPhone’s battery performance rated lower than every other smartphone manufacturer’s handsets except for HTC, so Apple definitely has room to improve the iPhone’s design beyond making it thinner/lighter/sexier every year.

As for the other ratings, for the most part other manufacturers didn’t even come close to matching the iPhone. RIM’s position near the bottom of the pile should come as no surprise to anyone who’s watched the BlackBerry’s stagnation over the past several years, but what is surprising is Samsung’s position at the very bottom of the satisfaction results. Whether it intentionally set out to ape Apple’s iPhone design or not, according to these results it doesn’t appear to have done the company any favors as far as consumer satisfaction is concerned.

Next year’s results should be interesting. Palm won’t be on the list, and if RIM keeps going the way it has been, the BlackBerry may not be either. It’ll also be fascinating to see how Nokia switching to Windows Phone 7 for its OS impacts consumer satisfaction regarding ease of operation and the operating system itself. As for HTC and Motorola, barring any revolutionary improvements in Android their results aren’t likely to fluctuate much.

Bookmark this post for next year, because I’m betting Apple’s going to top the list again in 2012.

Apple takes top spot in J.D. Power smartphone ratings five years in a row originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 08 Sep 2011 23:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’ve found that Wi-Fi, 3G, EDGE, and GPRS don’t provide sufficient coverage to siphon the internet into your iOS device, you’re in luck. According to Network World, Iridium is introducing new access point gear that will enable satellite-based internet access on your iPhone or iPad from pretty much anywhere on Earth.

“The two new devices enable use of data applications on mobile smartphones and tablets that have Wi-Fi capabilities,” Network World says, “and the access point bridges the connection over the Iridium satellite network.” While Iridium says the service should be sufficient for email and internet access, the sub-dialup 26-27 Kbps speed means accessing anything but the most basic internet services is going to be an exercise in extreme patience.

Connecting the new access point to an Iridium satellite phone allows you to create a local Wi-Fi network, and from there any Wi-Fi capable device should be able to piggyback off the satellite link. It sounds somewhat similar to the MiFi, but with a satellite signal providing data rather than 3G.

AccessPoint should cost “less than US$200” according to Iridium, but it must also be paired with a much more expensive satellite phone, and service will cost about a dollar per minute. The service will roll out with support for BlackBerry and Android devices soon, with support for iOS devices coming later this year. I guess that’s good news for anyone who’s sailing across the Pacific, driving across the Outback, or caravanning across the Sahara and wants to check in on FourSquare.

Iridium to introduce iOS satellite access point later this year originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 08 Sep 2011 22:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You might have, ahem, noticed, it’s football season. Users of the free personal news app Zite now can add their favorite teams and Zite will deliver personalized pigskin stories.

Zite is my favorite iPad news discovery app, and this NFL category is going to be just what rabid football fans want. The more stories you look at, the more Zite will know about your interests, and in a short time you’ll be getting all the football news you want personalized with your interests in a team, players, or even fantasy league information.

Because Zite searches in places you’ll likely never see, the stories will likely be ones you might not have seen just crawling around the web on your own.

If you are using Zite now, you’ll get a notice on the front page to add the football category and from there you can add as many teams as you want to follow.

Zite adds NFL category to bring you personalized football news originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 08 Sep 2011 21:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dear Aunt TUAW,

I am new to the Mac community, and there are some programs that are unsupported on the Mac and I know there are a few options to run Windows on a Mac. When I search online for the best options and answers to my questions (what is the best option, do I need a Windows license/disc, difference between emulators/virtual machines, Parallels vs Boot Camp vs VMware Fusion etc), most of the info is pretty old and outdated. Can you help me navigate jumping out of the Windows into the Apple Orchard?

Lovingly with One Foot on Both Platforms,

James

Dear James,

For any full Windows install, you definitely need a Windows license. A disc will certainly help you install, whether you go with Boot Camp (dual-boot) or Parallels/VMware Fusion/VirtualBox (run inside an virtualized PC). Auntie knows there are pluses and minuses to both these approaches which our noble commenters will surely dive into with both feet, but here’s the abbreviated version.

Boot Camp offers the fastest, fullest Windows-on-Apple hardware experience. You basically get a complete Windows install, but on a shiny Apple computer. For gaming, hardware-dependent apps and maximum available performance, it’s the no-compromises option, but you do need to reboot to switch between Windows and OS X, so it may slow you down in that regard.

The other main option is virtualization, creating a ‘PC in a box’ that runs in software under OS X. Both market leaders Parallels and VMware Fusion have some compromises in speed and peripheral integration, but they do so while running at the same time as OS X, with easy file access and other shared elements. The open-source and free VirtualBox may have a few more rough edges but it does do the job for intermittent use.

Another solution is Crossover. Allowing you to run Windows apps inside OS X, it does not require a license or a Windows disc… but as Uncle Mike puts it, “60% of the time, it works every time.” Not all Windows applications play nicely in Crossover’s W32 API compatibility environment (based on the open-source Wine project), and those that do launch may be limited in their functionality. It pays to try out Crossover first, however, if your application is on the supported list — it might be perfect for you.

In the end, it all comes down to how integrated you need your Windows experience to be. If you don’t do a lot of switching back and forth, dual-booting through Boot Camp may be your best solution. If you do, then virtual Windows helps integrate your apps better.

Auntie’s not a big Windows user, so she invites her more Win-ny nieces and nephews to jump in with suggestions.

Hugs,

Auntie T.

Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me run Windows on Mac originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 08 Sep 2011 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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