Category: I-phone

The Voice is an NBC reality talent show that lets singers compete for US$100,000 and a recording deal with Universal Republic Records. Like other reality shows, The Voice lets viewers vote for their favorite contestants by phone, through the NBC Live app, and online at NBC.com. A new twist in the rules will also let people vote with their wallet by counting a vote every time someone buys the artist’s song on iTunes.

Admittedly, some votes will be accidentally cast by iTunes users who are buying out of pleasure and not for voting reasons, but NBC and Universal Media Studios don’t seem to mind. They seem happy with the new voting scheme which links sales to popularity and generates extra money for all involved.

NBC’s The Voice will use iTunes purchases as votes originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 08 Jun 2011 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The words “console quality” have been bandied about quite a bit recently in relation to games written for Apple’s iOS-powered devices. One of the games that kicked it all off was Firemint’s Real Racing, which originally pushed the envelope of what the iPhone was capable of.

Of course when the iPad launched, Real Racing HD was released to take advantage of the larger screen and increased horsepower. Fast forward to last December when Firemint released Real Racing 2, which also showed off what the iPhone 4 could do. Since then, Apple has released the iPad 2 and soon after Firemint unleashed Real Racing 2 HD, but how does the latest and greatest installment match up? Read on to find out.

Continue reading Real Racing 2 HD brings console quality racing to the iPad

Real Racing 2 HD brings console quality racing to the iPad originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 08 Jun 2011 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Our big sister site, Engadget, had a chance to go hands-on with iOS 5 the other day at WWDC and took oodles of screenshots to enjoy. TUAW, of course, has a number of writers who also have had a day or two to grope the new iOS, but who are limited by Non-Disclosure Agreements to what they can say about pre-release software.

As a result, we’re going to point you to Jacob Schulman’s lovely screenshots and galleries so that you can get a developer’s-eye view of the new features that make iOS 5 so enchanting. Among my favorites? The notification screens seen above.

So many of us have wanted to be able to check mail, messages, weather, stock prices, and more at a glance — this fall, it all comes to iPhone. I’m also pretty happy with the improvements to the camera app and the ability to bring up the camera from the lock screen. No more fumbling through unlocking the iPhone, finding the camera app, and then finally getting the camera pointed at the subject — which has moved on in the interim.

Enjoy the photos at Engadget, and let us know what your most highly anticipated iOS 5 feature is.

Engadget goes hands-on with iOS 5 originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 08 Jun 2011 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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License agreements are dull…until they’re dramatically performed by an Academy Award-winning actor. The folks at CNET asked Richard Dreyfuss to read sections of an Apple EULA in dramatic fashion, and he obliged. The result is silly, hilarious and enjoyable. Don’t miss the last section, “Effective Until.” It’s especially, well, final.

Hats off to Richard for being a good sport.

Richard Dreyfuss offers a dramatic reading of Apple EULA originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I’m at the E3 video gaming conference, this week, where I’ve been asking the staff of our gaming-obsessed sister site, Joystiq, for some of their favorite apps. Managing Editor Justin McElroy told me he’s gotten no end of amusement from Office Jerk, a free (ad-supported, though ads can be removed with a 99-cent purchase) download from the App Store.

It’s more than a little goofy — the idea is that you have a boring office mate on the screen, and it’s your job to playfully annoy him by throwing various objects his way, Paper Toss-style. Part of the game is lining up your various shots and trying to get longer and longer combos (despite the fan that seems bent on blowing your throws off course), and the other part is just laughing at your calmly irate office mate who only throws you a look of disdain, which you can then try to hit for extra points.

It’s simple fun, especially if you’ve got a wicked sense of humor. There’s no Game Center integration or extras, unfortunately, but for a free download, Office Jerk does what it says on the box. I just can’t recommend you become a real office jerk — better to take out your workplace frustrations on this virtual co-worker.

TUAW’s Daily iPhone App: Office Jerk originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 08 Jun 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The frustration and questions surrounding iTunes App Store purchase fraud are (unfortunately) continuing. Over the past three weeks, we’ve received several first-hand reports of accounts with positive gift card balances being unexpectedly drained; often the charges are for in-app purchases for apps such as Section8’s World War, Sega’s Kingdom Conquest or Kamagames’ Texas Poker. Even as Apple is pushing forward with iCloud, questions remain about the security and safety of those millions of accounts.

You can read the examples on Apple’s discussion boards (stretching from November of 2010 until this week), a series of posts over at Betanews, or coverage at PC Pro — but many of the stories are similar to the one below. Users who funded their accounts with gift cards saw those balances chewed through with unauthorized purchases; one user with PayPal funding for his account saw over $500 in fake purchases. The in-app buys were for apps the users never downloaded; most claim that their passwords were never compromised and only used for iTunes. Even if phishing or password compromises can explain some of the purchases, it’s hard to imagine that all of these accounts were cracked.

Here’s our first example, from mid-May. If you have similar instances, let us know in the comments or send us a tip. We’re asking Apple’s media team for answers, if there are any to be had.

I bought a $15 iTunes gift card from Apple so I could buy a chat app (Verbs). I also purchased some other apps (Monopoly, mostly because it’s cheap, Bumpy Road and loaded a few free apps) which left me with roughly $7-ish dollars remaining in my account.

On 5/19, the following happened:

1. I noticed that my store credit had decreased to 51 cents when I went to purchase another app, but thought nothing of it. Actually, my initial thought was maybe a purchase from the past had caught up with me. I wasn’t sure.
2. Later that evening I received an iTunes receipt email to the tune of a $99 in-app purchase for a game called “World War”.
3. I immediately tweeted about the issue and changed my password.
4. From that I was able to glean info that the app was purchased on 5/18 at 7:59pm. A free app called World War and then a $99 in-app purchase for “1700 honor points.” The strange thing is I’ve never downloaded nor purchased this app myself, it doesn’t even exist on my device so this is not a case of the smurf-berries.
5. I emailed Apple support and went to bed because their human-powered support line was closed by 10:30p.

Today I called Apple support and was on the line with them for close to 30-40 minutes. I explained everything above to the support person, who at the same time was IM’ing his iTunes store support contacts. They asked me when I had purchased the gift card, I told them at/around the 13th and what my first and last purchase was. I told them the first purchase was for Verbs, the last was Bumpy Road.

They investigated further and noticed that prior to the free app + in-app purchase that two $50 store credits were put into my account. At which point the free app was “purchased” along with the in-app purchase of $99 (which equaled to $108 with tax). This raised a flag with them and their Support Manager and they immediately froze my account and escalated my case to Apple’s Fraud Dept. The support person says this was the fastest occurrence of this that he has ever seen and he along with others had to deal with the Smurfs case.

I’m convinced that they will refund the $7-ish dollars that was there before and they mentioned that the account should only be closed for 24-48 hours. During this time they will be investigating this issue and trying to piece together this on their end. Right now I’m less concerned with the refund and MORE concerned with the app developer and whatever scheme is going on.

As for the advice they gave me, basically to change my password (yadda, yadda) and turn off in-app purchases in Settings. They could not, however, explain to me how a free app + in-app purchase was associated with my account.

The developer of the app, Section8, are the same outfit who were sued over stealing user data.*

A second example, this one featuring multiple PayPal charges totaling over $500:

I basically started receiving emails from PayPal saying “You have just sent $44.95 to iTunes” and I was shocked because I did not buy anything. I immediately logged into PayPal and cancelled my payment agreement with iTunes. I received 11 charges of $44.95 each. I have filed a complaint with iTunes and PayPal but I have not received any reply yet.

From what I read online, it seems like it is not clear if iTunes has been hacked or if the Sega software used for the hack (which I never downloaded) has been compromised. I never had the feeling that my account had been compromised before. Everything worked perfectly fine, never had strange emails, phishing attempts, etc.

Our final report, with gift card balances being drained:

Shortly after loading $50 of gift card credit on my itunes account, a remaining balance of $37 (after some earlier purchases) was wiped out by Kamagames Texas Poker chips. I googled the problem and it seems like many many people have experienced the same thing, and a snotty response from Apple about it as well. Everyone affected seems to have been gift card users, or those with a positive itunes balance, rather than money being charged to a credit card.

I don’t understand how this kind of fraud is being perpetrated but I am angry with Apple for not coming clean about it and explaining the problem given that it clearly seems something more specific than stolen usernames and passwords… The forum linked above is just one of many reporting this issue which seems to have started earlier this month.

iTunes fraud surge hits gift card balances, PayPal accounts originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 08 Jun 2011 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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At a Cupertino City Council meeting last night, Steve Jobs presented plans for Apple’s new campus off I-280 in Cupertino. As you can see from the image above, the campus resembles a spaceship. The entire campus will be one huge round building with a courtyard in the middle. The building itself will be four stories tall, and Apple plans to re-landscape the current area to include 6000 trees. A natural gas energy center will be on-campus to power the new building, and Apple will only rely on California’s power grid as a backup.

Speaking to the City Council, Steve Jobs described the new campus (as transcribed by MacRumors): “It’s a pretty amazing building. It’s a little like a spaceship landed. It’s got this gorgeous courtyard in the middle… It’s a circle. It’s curved all the way around. If you build things, this is not the cheapest way to build something. There is not a straight piece of glass in this building. It’s all curved. We’ve used our experience making retail buildings all over the world now, and we know how to make the biggest pieces of glass in the world for architectural use. And, we want to make the glass specifically for this building here. We can make it curve all the way around the building… It’s pretty cool.”

Last November, Apple bought the former 98-acre HP campus that will be home to the new campus Steve Jobs showed off. The purchase of the 98-acre campus was in addition to a 50-acre site that Apple bought in 2006. You can check out Jobs’ “keynote” to the Cupertino City Council below. Also, for those of you keeping track, this is the second time the Cupertino City Council has given Steve Jobs a standing ovation.

When I worked for Apple, coworkers who were located outside of Cupertino would frequently ask “So when are you going to the mothership next?” “Mothership,” of course, being an epithet for Apple’s campus at 1 Infinite Loop. Now the term is moving a step closer to the literal — at least insofar as looks go.

Steve Jobs unveils new Apple campus that literally looks like a mothership originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 08 Jun 2011 02:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple pushed iOS 5 beta to developers on Junes 6th which requires a developer account or device’s UDID registered in a developer account to install iOS 5 beta on iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch or…

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Because we received a fantastic response when recommended deals for mobile developers in the past we thought we should do it on a weekly basis: so here’s the deal of the week – Keynotopia App Prototyping Templates Worth $120 for Only $40!

Basically Keynotopia makes it possible to design interfaces and create clickable mockups for web, mobile, and desktop apps in 30 minutes or less, without touching a design tool or writing a single line of code.

To prototype an app, simply copy and paste interface components from a Keynotopia template onto your slides, add hyperlinks to create interactivity, then export your presentation as a clickable PDF and test it on your mobile device, or send it to others for feedback.

It’s all done by using Keynotopia’s templates in either Keynote, PowerPoint or OpenOffice, transforming these presentation tools into the best UI design and prototyping tool.

The templates include over 2,000 native vector UI components, designed from scratch in each presentation tool, making them fully editable and customizable without additional tools.

You can also annotate and share your prototypes with your team members, instead of writing long spec documents. In addition, you could download the Keynotopia iPhone and iPad apps to preview and test your prototypes on these devices.

Keynotopia is used by thousands of designers and developers worldwide. It works on Mac, Windows, Linux and iPad. It’s also compatible with Adobe CS tools for importing graphics and importing screens, making the final prototype part of the production instead of throwing it away and starting from scratch in Photoshop.

Annotate and share your prototypes with your team members, instead of writing long spec documents. Add comments and slide notes, then share it and get feedback via iWork.com.

Don’t throw away your prototypes when you’re done. Keynotopia and Adobe CS tools work well together. Copy/Paste seamlessly between apps, and export your final prototypes as PNGs to use the actual product.

All this is accomplished without learning any new tools or programming languages.

Watch the following 90 seconds video to see what’s possible with Keynotopia

Keynotopia in 90 seconds from Amir Khella on Vimeo.

The regular price for each Keynotopia bundle (consisting of 9 templates) is $40, but in today’s deal, you get all 3 bundles (Keynote + PowerPoint + OpenOffice) for $40 instead of $120. New components are added regularly, and all updates are free forever. You’ll also get all future Keynotopia templates for free!

See all the details and get Keynotopia now, while the stocks last! (expires June 13th, 2011)

You can have 20 million users download you freemium application, but if only 2 of them spend more than 30 seconds in your app you have a problem! Over the next few weeks we will take the time to review some of the key components of building a successful tutorial for your freemium game and provide  insights on how to educate and retain users to the fullest.

So what is a tutorial anyways?

Retention is a key metric that speaks to how many users stick with your app day to day after initially being acquired. Typically developers and publishers define the tutorial as something that takes a user a few seconds (or minutes) to do and then they are done. In mobile freemium games it is becoming increasingly more effective to provide longer trailed tutorials that slowly introduce actions and features to the user. The goal isn’t to slow down the game experience, but to rather optimize the education process so that the user is less confused and comfortable with gameplay.

The evolving tutorial

In addition to having a solid tutorial of the game, it’s important to continually optimize the intro process over time. Analytics are vital when viewing different usage patterns of users in your app. Don’t forget to track all steps along the way to identify these pitfalls. We will identify specific tracking metrics in weeks to come.

In the coming weeks

Over the next few weeks we will look at the core elements of the tutorial and provide insights to the best practices for effectively implementing a tutorial. We will also be showcasing the best way to introduce new features, events and content to users over time so that the education process is fluid and effective. We will also spend some time talking about post launch planning so that developers can truly optimize their tutorials.

Do you have a question about freemium gaming or a topic you’d like us to explore? Let us know in the comments or catch us on twitter @rechargestudios or @w3i.

Freemium Game Blogs are published in partnership with the series on W3i’s corporate blog.

Matt Tubergen heads Recharge Studios, a wholly owned subsidiary of W3i that invests in the development and marketing/distribution of freemium mobile games.  W3i is a market leader in distributing and monetizing apps with over 500 million apps distributed for W3i clients. Recharge Studios is actively seeking new investment opportunities, if you have a great idea for a game contact us.

The similarities between developing with the Corona SDK and Actionscript is one of the reasons that Corona has become so popular for those developing iOS games.  That being said, the conversion process for a game developed using Actionscript to one running in the Corona SDK is extensive.

I have previously mentioned some tutorials explaining how to convert different aspects of a Flash game to a Corona game.  Recently I came across another set of tutorials that take you through step-by-step the process of taking an actual flash game (one created using Actionscript with the Flixel game engine) and explain how to create all the same game elements in the Corona SDK step-by-step.

The tutorials are by Lance Ulmer and can be found here:
Porting ActionScript Games to Corona Part 1
Porting ActionScript Games to Corona Part 2
Porting ActionScript Games to Corona Part 3

With this set of tutorials and the previous set on converting Flash games to the Corona SDK you should know just about everything you need to know to convert your Actionscript games to Corona as quickly as possible.

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

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Many app game descriptions just suck.  It is unfortunate really since it is one of those things you have direct control impact that could have a large impact on the success of your games.

It is easy to get writers block when creating descriptions – or take them for granted.  So, when I found  an excellent guide on how to improve your app descriptions I decided to share it.

You can read the guide here:
Describe Your Game Better Hook More Players

What I think really hits home in this article is the emphasis on actually using your description to sell, a good set of guidelines.  Overall there are some great guidelines provided.

[via Under The Bridge]

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

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Streaming media services is a fairly new industry and it is a growing one. Movie and television studios are continually seeing the benefit to this transmission method and are still figuring out how to best utilize it. Different services have been popping over the last couple years. Hulu and Netflix are two popular examples in this category.

The natural next step for these web streaming services is to mobile devices. Our devices and networks are now capable of handling these services. The iPhone is no slouch when it comes to media so this is a perfect fit. Crackle is a free, ad-supported video streaming services that has a mix of movies, television shows and original shows in its library. The Web service is great, but can the iPhone application measure up? Read on to find out

What is Crackle?

Crackle is a video-playing application that is essentially an extension of the Crackle website. The most similar comparison I can think think of with regard to functionality would have to be the Netflix iPhone application. You’re able to browse a database of movies, television shows, trailers, and shorts and play or add them to your queue. The application is free, but it is ad-supported so you’ll be interrupted every so often to watch a fifteen second commercial.

Crackle is a Sony Pictures Entertainment Company and the library reflects that. They do add new media very regularly so the shows and movies available is constantly growing. You won’t find movies just released or television shows that are still on air at the moment, but the library is still fairly large and diverse nonetheless.

The application is entirely free with no limits on streaming. The trade-off to this is that you’ll need to sit through some short advertisements. The model is similar to the free version of Hulu.

Design and Interface

The color scheme is dark, which I think fits with the media and video watching format. The overall design is nicely organized and easy to use. As is common with many iPhone applications, the main controls for the application are always (except when watching a movie) available at the bottom of the screen. This is your main navigation.

Crackle launch screen and initial view

Contextual navigation buttons appear where necessary while you’re browsing the application. This is another common iOS design standard and it makes Crackle a breeze to navigate. For example you’ll see buttons appear at the top of the display while browsing movies to take you back a level. An alphabetical shortcut browsing function (a la the iOS Contacts app) that will allow you to quickly navigate a list of movies or shows.

There is nothing groundbreaking about the design of the application. In fact, it seems to follow the most common iOS conventions quite closely. This is a good thing as those conventions became common because they were good, so Crackle is simple to use and it’s a breeze to pick up and understand how it works very quickly.

Functionality

Crackle is a web service to begin with and this application can be used alone or as an an extension of that service. The iOS application carries with it essentially the same functionality as the web application does. From checking out featured content to browsing different media libraries to adding content to your queue. We’ll take a spin through the specific sections of the application to get a better sense of exactly how it all works.

Featured

When you view the Crackle website (www.crackle.com) you’ll see some featured content sliding across the screen. The iPhone application has this same feature. In fact the initial launch screen is the featured screen. You’ll get a quick view of some of the latest content available with a little blurb about each item. From what I’ve noticed, this can be helpful for pointing out what content is new as the Crackle library is constantly growing. It can feel a bit “advertise-y” but overall I think it’s a nice feature. I would compare it to the featured area of the Appstore.

A featured movie

Movies

Obviously, a big part of this application is being able to watch movies on your iPhone. The Movies section is essentially an already filtered list of all the movies available on Crackle. Initially, you’ll see a list of featured movies, but it can be sorted by Most Popular and Recently Added by using a category spinner as well. It would be nice to have a few more options for sorting there, but if you want to do some more serious searching the “Browse” section is where you’ll head anyway so it isn’t a huge issue. We’ll talk more about browsing later on.

Movie listing and the list filter spinner

On the movie list you’ll see the movies in a list format each showing the title of the movie, the genre, a rating and a thumbnail of the movie poster. It’s the right amount of information for you to quickly scan and make some decently informed decisions about whether you’re interested in a movie or not. Tapping on a movie will bring you to the full movie view page where you’ll see the same info as on the list along with running time a quick synopsis and also a section called Why It Crackles. As far as I can tell this is simply a quick review of the film. It’s typically only a sentence or two and seems rather pointless most of the time.

Movie page

A button to “Watch Now” is displayed right below this section. As you would guess, pressing this button opens the media player in full landscape orientation for you to watch. Some movies will also have a button to view the movie in iTunes. Tapping this button will open iTunes and take you right to the listing so you can purchase the movie if you would like.

Further down on the page you’ll see some options to take you to the Channel Home, which doesn’t really take you anywhere different so I’m not completely sure what the point of that function is exactly. You’ll also have the ability to add the movie to your queue and also share it via Facebook, Twitter, or email.

Being able to queue movies and shows is a great feature and can come in really handy with an application like this. It really could be one of its most important features as a matter fact. Sharing is also a nice touch, but I don’t think I see it as a huge feature. It could be nice to share a movie or show with a friend of yours from time to time, but this isn’t something that I’ll be using that often.

Sharing a movie and adding it to your queue

Shows

There are lots of interface similarities between the Shows section to the Movies section. As with Movies, the initial page is a list of the shows currently being featured by Crackle. This list is also sortable by Most Popular and Most Recent. Each show in the list this time displays the title, genre and rating along with a poster for the show.

Tapping on a show listing will take you to the full page for that particular show. There you’ll see some additional information such as a rating, release date, a short synopsis as well as the Why It Crackles note. From a full show page you are able to navigate to the Full Episode listing for the show your a currently viewing. Tapping that will take you to another list of each available show.

The format is essentially exactly the same as the other listings we’ve already talked about. Tapping on an individual episode will give you the information specifically about that episode with the options to watch it, share it, add it to your queue, or go to the channel home. The Channel Home for a show is simply the main show listing where we initially started.

Shows listing and show page

Navigating around is really quite simple and all along the way you’ll see contextual navigation buttons appearing at the top of the screen so you can easily jump back to the previous screen. It’s a pretty intuitive interface and I had no problems doing what I wanted to do.

Browse

This is the section where you’ll be going to search for that one particular movie or show you’re looking for. Initially the view will show you a handful of different categories to split up your search right off the bat. You chose between browsing movies, television originals, genres, or collections.

Browse categories and full movie list

The movies, television, and originals sections function pretty much the same. Tapping on one of those will bring up a listing of everything available in that category. The list is alphabetized and displays only the name of the movie or show. A super helpful feature on this list is the alphabet slider on the right hand side of the display. This is the exact same feature that is in the iOS Contacts application and enables you to quickly jump to certain areas of the list without needing to scroll through the entire listing.

Browsing by genre or collections gives you another level of filtering. The genres allows you to only look at certain those certain categories of movies, shows or originals. This is a nice way to simply browse for something to watch with nothing other than a genre in mind. If I’m in the mood for some comedy, but can’t think of anything specific, perfect, I’ll just browse the comedy movie genre.

Browsing genres

Crackle has put together some curated groups it calls collections. These are assemblages of movies or shows that fit into some particular group. For example there are collections called Slapstick, Lost in the ’70s, Blockbusters, Chick Flicks, and many others. Again, this is a really nice area to just wander if you’re not entirely sure what you’re looking for. It adds a little direction to the aimless wandering.

Browsing collections

More

As is common with many iOS applications you’ll see an area that holds a few additional features and functionality that hasn’t been deemed important enough to warrant a navigational button all its own. In the More section of Crackle you’ll be able to do things like a full keyword search, along with managing your Crackle account and queue. Knowing that your queue listing is housed here is definitely the most important and useful item in this area.

I should also note that an account isn’t necessary to use this application, but it is if you want to use features like the queue which can then be synched with items queued using the website or iPad application. I should also note that the edit button at the top of the More section will allow you to customize which buttons are used in the main navigation. So, you could place My Queue in place of Featured if you so choose.

More with the queue list

Video Library

As with any video and music streaming service and application the available content is a very important thing to discuss. It can really make or break an application. Even the most wonderful interface in the world can’t cover up a lack of good content. So where does Crackle grade in this area?

Crackle is a Sony Pictures Entertainment company so as far as I can tell the library is limited to what is available to them. Fortunately that is a pretty large chunk of media so there is definitely plenty available. So far I haven’t been exactly blown away or left wanting by the current selection. I think this is a pretty common feeling when using any video streaming service and it will be the case as long as each producer is holding on to their content.

You’re not going to find anything that has just been released and I will say that it the library does seem smaller than Hulu or Netflix, but that said the library is still solid and everyone should be able to find some shows and movies that are of interest. Crackle claims to be constantly releasing new media into the library so the selection should continue to improve over time.

Conclusion

Media streaming is an interesting space to be in right now and there are certainly many different angles that companies take to the function. Crackle has chosen to go the free, yet ad-supported route, which I think works fairly well. As long as the service is free I certainly have no problem watching a fifteen second commercial. While they are an interruption, they are short and really not that big of a deal.

The Crackle application is well done and not the place where you would dock any points. The interface is well designed and easy to use and bug free. I never had any problems actually using the application. Depending on the movies and shows you are looking for you could dock some points for the content available in the library, but that is a fairly subjective criticism. There’s a bunch of Seinfeld content available with more planned to be added so if that’s a favorite of yours then you’ve got it made.

Video streaming I’m afraid will always be a mixed bag service when looking at it from the consumer side. Each company that releases a service only has access to certain content so to have access to as much as possible you’ll need to use multiple services. The good news is that more and more content is becoming available, the bad news is that it is still pretty segmented. Crackle is one such segment and absolutely worth checking out especially with this great, free iPhone application.

Earlier today Apple kicked off their annual Worldwide Developer’s Conference with a keynote speech that was chock full of new goodies for virtually everyone who uses their software regularly.

Mac.AppStorm has all the info on what’s coming with Lion and iCloud and we’ve got the lowdown on outstanding new features of iOS. Let’s take a look!

1. Notifications

Notifications are easily my favorite new feature of iOS 5 and are just about everything we’ve been begging Apple to implement for years.

Fully admitting that the previous notification system was a bit all over the place, Apple has created a new “Notifications Center” that houses all of your incoming data notices from your various applications.

Notifications

Now instead of interrupting you, notifications present themselves as a subtle animation at the top of your screen. Simply swipe down to view the Notifications Center from any app. From here you can see a unified view of all your recent notifications.

Lock Screen

Fortunately, they didn’t stop there. The swiping gesture is nice, but you need to be able to get a quick look at this information as soon as you look at your phone. The lock screen has now gone from a pretty but useless wallpaper to a fully functional information hub.

Here you get a quick and attractive look at your various notifications. It’s not just a static screen mind you, it’s animated and even fully interactive. Just swipe across a notification to be taken to the associated app or hit the little “x” to clear it.

2. Newsstand

Notifications

Jobs and the crew have been elbowing their way into the publishing business for a while now and Newsstand is a big development in this area. It’s pretty much iBooks but focused on magazine content.

As with iBooks, there’s a central location where you can find all the potential downloads. However, instead of just one-time downloads, you can create and manage subscriptions to various publications.

3. Twitter Integration

A few days ago rumors started surfacing that Twitter was going to be built into iOS in a big way, and today we got a preview of what that’s going to look like. It was suggested by several parties that this integration would go much further than simply an added button in a few of the apps, but it turns out, this is almost exactly what we got, with a few decent extras thrown in to sweeten the deal.

Twitter Integration in iOS

With iOS 5 you can tweet photos, YouTube videos, web pages, maps and more, all from their respective apps. One pretty cool bonus is the ability to sync your contacts with Twitter (your address book pulls down the contact’s photo).

Perhaps the biggest part of the Twitter integration happens behind the scenes. You can now sign into Twitter right from the operating system, which will then communicate to any other Twitter-powered apps and prevent the need for extra login steps.

4. Safari

With all of the various new and exciting browsers popping up in the App Store, Mobile Safari was starting to show its age. Fortunately, iOS 5 has included a few new features that will bring Safari up to par.

For starters, there are tabs. No surprises here, they work exactly like what you’d expect and look like those in the big Safari.

Speaking of Safari on the desktop, another feature the iPhone is borrowing from there is Safari Reader, which takes out all the formatting and separate pages from news and blog posts and strips them down to easily readable text with inline images on a single page. You’ve seen similar functionality in services like Instapaper and ReadItLater, which brings us to our next feature: Reading List.

Safari’s New Reading List

Mobile Safari doesn’t just borrow the reader-friendly features of Instapaper, it duplicates the core functionality of the service by allowing you to create and manage a list of articles that you want to come back and finish in the future. This feature is found under the bookmarking icon and automatically syncs across your various devices.

5. Reminders

Among all of the hype and speculation of the past few weeks there was one thing I never heard anyone say: “I sure do wish there were more todo apps on the iPhone.” This has become one of the most over-saturated app genres around, so much so that I get nasty emails from you guys every time we review another todo app!

Well don’t shoot the messenger but Apple have apparently decided to take a huge chunk of this business by incorporating their own simple task manager into iOS. Reminders is a slick and basic task list with a heavy leaning towards date-related notifications that sync with iCal and Outlook.

Reminders

It doesn’t stop there though, you can also set up a location-based reminder that shoots you a quick message once your phone reaches a certain location. No more driving all the way to the grocery store and filling up the cart only to forget the one thing you actually left the house to buy.

6. Camera

You’ve been there before. That fleeting moment where you miss the opportunity to photograph something as you take the time to turn on your phone, unlock it and launch the photo app.

In an unexpected but very welcome move, iOS 5 places a shortcut to the camera right on the lock screen. The coolest part is that the volume buttons are repurposed and become a convenient shoot button (tapping the screen always causes camera shake).

New Camera Features

In addition to these features, you can now lock the exposure/focus point and pinch to zoom in. Unfortunately, it looks like you still can’t separate the focus and exposure point so you’ll have to keep that Camera+ app around.

7. Mail & Calendar

Both Mail and Calendar have received a few decent new features as well. For Mail, you can now flag messages (cue “It’s about time!” exclamations), create and delete mailboxes, define words (iOS-wide) and drag and drop names in the address fields.

The best part: rich text. There’s not much here but you at least have some basic options for bolding, italicizing and underlining sections of your message. Also, iPad users will be happy to see a gesture in portrait mode that shows and hides the inbox.

In the spirit of PC independency, the Calendar app now gives you much more control, including the ability to create and delete calendars right on your device. Also, there’s finally a year view!

8. Completely PC Independent

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to explain to people that an iPad can’t be your sole computing device. You simply have to have a desktop or laptop to sync it to. Not anymore!

iOS now PC Free!

iOS devices are now fully independent from PC interaction. You can setup, update and do anything else with your iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch without connecting it to a computer. All updates are downloaded directly through the cloud and the awesome new iCloud service will make sure everything stays nice a synced across your devices. The only reason you’ll have to plug in is charging!

9. Game Center

After boasting that the number of Game Center users dwarfs that of XBox Live users, Forstall showed off some new Game Center features.

You can now add a photo and browse friend/game suggestions so you’ll always have someone new to play with and something new to play with them! Turn-based games like Scrabble now have built-in iOS support so you can expect to see a lot more games utilize this type of gameplay.

Finally, since it’s annoying to be taken out of Game Center when you want to learn about an app, you can buy and download games right there without being redirected to the App Store.

10. iMessage

Blackberry fans are often seen boasting of their exclusive BBM messaging service. Well now iOS kids have something to fire back about because iMessage allows you to send unlimited high-quality picture and videos along with simple text messages to any other iOS user completely free.

iMessage

This is built right into the normal messaging app and has lots of cool features like group messaging and live typing notifications. Imagine iChat on the iPhone (though unfortunately no iChat integration is present).

Much More

iOS 5 is the most significant upgrade of Apple’s mobile operating system to date and boasts over 200 new features! Check out apple.com for more information on the iPad’s new split screen keyboard, AirPlay mirroring, new gestures and a lot more.

The worst news of the day was the announcement that we won’t get to play with any of this until this fall. Oh well, in the mean time, leave a comment below and let us know what new iOS features you’re most excited about!

I’ve never been a huge Gowalla user, none of my friends use it (they’re more into Facebook Check-in) and it hasn’t really caught on in my city. Nonetheless, I like the idea of apps like Gowalla and FourSquare, which allow you to assert your fondness for locations and businesses simply by pressing a button. Though I’m not compelled to use Gowalla socially, I sometimes check for nearby spots when I’m in an unfamiliar neighbourhood, only to find a list of churches, bus stops and chain restaurants. The developers of Goodfoot attempt to harness the power of Gowalla and make it more useful to all types of iPhone users, even those that aren’t social network superstars.

Goodfoot lists local Spots in order of their “awesomeness”, a metric they’ve developed which ranks based on how often spots are re-visited by locals, and claims to be able to filter through the uninteresting spots that fill the Gowalla nearby list and show you where the locals actually hang out. So, is it successful? Can an algorithm separate the local hotspots from the tourist traps? Find out after the jump!

Interface and Design

Goodfoot boasts a wonderfully straightforward interface with only three self-explanatory tabs: walk, bike, and drive. Each tab lists spots based on proximity and “awesomeness”. Though perhaps not quite as gorgeous as the Gowalla app, everything about the Goodfoot interface is simple and intuitive, I rarely say this, but my even dad could find a local pub with Goodfoot!

Goodfoot Main Interface

Browsing with Goodfoot

Interacting with Goodfoot is a clear, logical process: browse spots depending on how far you want to go/how you want to travel, check out the awesomemeter of a spot and read highlights, then either open the spot in the Gowalla app/website, or get directions and a map.

Open spot in Gowalla or map it

Did it find the Awesome?

So, the real question is: did Goodfoot accurately identify the “awesome” local businesses and attractions? In my neighbourhood at least, the awesomemeter pretty much nailed it. I’ve lived in this neighbourhood forever, and I know that the best hangouts within walking distance are the park, the Rooster Cafe, and Allen’s, all of which show up at the top of Goodfoot’s list.

I can attest to the awesomeness of these spots

The biking-range list was similarly impressive, save for the inclusion of a run-down mall (everybody goes there, but no one really wants to). The accuracy of the awesomemeter declined with distance, the driving-range spots were more of a mixed bag.A lot of movie theatres were listed, and though they’re a popular hangout spot for suburban teens, they’re not really places you’d like to go.

I imagine if you were living in the suburbs, you’d find a lot of chains and movie theatres and malls, because that’s where the young people hang out, and it’s usually the young people that use apps like Gowalla. In my neighbourhood, this is an advantage, the people who check-in to Gowalla are young, tech-happy professionals and creative types like me, and this is probably the case in most dense urban neighbourhoods.

Some bizarre options within driving distance

Conclusion

Goodfoot is my favorite kind of iPhone app: it does one, useful thing, and does it very well. There aren’t any bells and slow-loading whistles, you’re not prompted to “share” everything you do, and you can get started using it right away without having to figure anything out.

With any check-in based app, you have to take into consideration the kind of people that do the checking-in, and whether or not your tastes are going to align with these types. In my gentrifying middle-class neighbourhood, the spots Goodfoot picked out would appeal to pretty much anyone in the neighbourhood regardless of age or personality. The further away you get from urban centres, the more chains and box-malls you’re likely to find, and if you were in one of the impossibly hip neighborhoods in any city, the popular spots wouldn’t necessarily be universally appealing . None of these are criticisms of Goodfoot, but just inherent elements of any check-in service.

Is it better than Yelp for finding the best Mexican food? Probably not. But it’s a much simpler, faster way of finding what you want than scrolling through conflicting reviews and getting tied-up in star ratings.

If you’re in a new neighbourhood and looking for a local hangout, or find yourself at a dive bar looking for alternatives, Goodfoot can point you in the right direction. If you’re like me, and don’t want to participate in the check-in phenomenon, but still want to take advantage of the data it provides, give Goodfoot a try.