Category: I-phone

Today, the Pixelmator team provided a peek at the next version of their namesake image editing tool. With the code name of Chameleon, Pixelmator 2.0 is a major upgrade that is expected to ship later in the summer of 2011. Anyone who has already purchased the app via the Mac App Store for US$29 gets a free upgrade to the new version when it arrives. Along with the increase in functionality provided with the upgrade comes a new price point — $59.

The new feature list is quite comprehensive. First, there are drawing tools (pen, freeform pen, convert, and path selection tools) that allow users to create and edit vector shapes. These tools also include pre-drawn triangle, line, rectangle, circle and custom shapes available on a new Shapes palette. The fill and stroke settings for these shapes are adjusted in a new Shape Settings palette, and shadows are easily added from this palette as well.

Probably the most anticipated new feature in the upgrade is the content-aware fill technology that can be used to delete unwanted elements in images. Want to get rid of that sunburned spot on your nose from your vacation photos? With the new Healing Tool or the regular selection tools, it will be easy to select an area and let Pixelmator fill it with nearby image content.

New retouching tools are part of the upgrade, including a Sponge Tool for adding or reducing color from image areas by dabbing at them, Burn and Dodge tools to darken or lighten portions of an image, and a Red Eye Tool for exorcising the red glow from eyes in your pictures.

Finally, there’s also a new Smudge Tool for smearing paint or obscuring details by using a brush tip to do the retouching. The user interface has been streamlined and made easier to use, there’s a new Eyedropper Tool for picking up colors, and a number of other toolbars and palettes that have been included.

With the announced upgrade, Pixelmator appears to be making great strides towards becoming a much less expensive alternative to Adobe’s Photoshop. What do you think, Pixelmator owners? Are you looking forward to the upgrade? Let us know in the comments.

Pixelmator 2.0 announced, coming to Mac App Store later this summer originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 02 Jun 2011 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Good thing Apple has a capable legal team as yet another patent infringement lawsuit has landed on the company’s doorstep. Apple, HP and Intel are being sued by X2Y Attenuators, a Nevada-based company which owns patents covering the electrode arrangements of processors. The lawsuit reportedly targets Intel’s Core i7 processor and includes both Apple and HP because they use the Core i7 in their notebook and desktop hardware. As with any patent lawsuit, we will have to wait to see how this all plays out in the courts.

X2Y Sues Apple, others over processor technology originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 02 Jun 2011 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A newly discovered patent from Apple describes a system for generating an alert based on calendar events and GPS location information. The system would expand the normal preset, time-based alert system with one that dynamically uses your location. The system would tie your GPS location to your calendar entires and remind you when you are near an event or pull up directions to your meeting or event. It could also use weather information, traffic data, public transportation schedules and more to help get you where you need to go. The patent was filed in 2009 and was only recently made public by the USPTO.

Patent suggests location- and traffic-aware iOS calendar alerts originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 02 Jun 2011 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Monster Hunter series of games is crazy popular in Japan — when a new version comes out, many workers and students will take the day off, just like when a new Halo or Call of Duty title comes out here in the US. And now the series has arrived on iOS thanks to Capcom’s new Monster Hunter Dynamic Hunting, available on the App Store now for US$4.99.

This version is surprisingly full-featured — while it doesn’t have any RPG leveling elements, it does feature the “kill, loot, and craft” cycle that’s made the series so popular. You can hunt down various monsters in the game, loot items of increasing quality from them, and then use those items to make better and better weapons and armor, allowing you to chase and fight more dangerous monsters. Unfortunately, the controls have been tuned for the iPhone, and they’re not quite as precise as a controller. The swiping scheme is reminiscent of games like Fruit Ninja and Infinity Blade, but nowhere near as responsive.

Still, especially if you’re a fan of the series, Monster Hunter is a nice take on the game, and Dynamic Hunting is a pretty good adaptation made just for the iPhone (Game Center and co-op play are even included). If you know what you’re getting into, you can probably decide whether you want it at full price or not. If you’re not sure, maybe wait for a sale — it might be a bit too expensive to jump into a long-running series with this iteration.

TUAW’s Daily iPhone App: Monster Hunter Dynamic Hunting originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 02 Jun 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Philip Elmer-DeWitt has an interesting article over at his Fortune Apple 2.0 blog that discusses Apple’s restrictions on iPad and iPhone giveaways. It’s not well-publicized or even strictly enforced by Apple, but the Cupertino company has a two-page policy governing the giveaway or promotion of its iOS devices.

The policy prohibits you from using the word “free” as an modifier of an Apple products name in a prominent way. You still can run an iPad or iPhone giveaway, but you have to use the word free in a less prominent way and submit all the promotional materials to Apple for review. A handful of other restrictions limit how you can use Apple’s product images and its font which is not to be used on or in connection with web sites, products, packaging, manuals.

Apple’s restrictions on iPad and iPhone giveaways originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 02 Jun 2011 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We first looked at the newsviewer app Taptu a couple of months ago when the iPad version launched. Its combination of social streams and curated news feeds makes it a strong contender in the crowded news reader space of iOS apps. The latest version, 1.5, launches today and adds a few key features to the product on both iPhone and iPad.

Search capabilities have been souped up to include searching keywords within feed content along with feed topics. This helps with story discovery, especially with far-ranging/eclectic sites like Boing Boing. Readers can also save stories to Instapaper for offline reading.

On the iPhone, several of the UI improvements from the iPad version have made their way over, including stream resizing and color-coding. iPhone users also now get the Related Stories feature, allowing them to spot trends or see other coverage of a single topic.

Taptu is a universal app for iPad/iPhone and is a free download in the App Store.

Taptu 1.5 adds Instapaper saving, search option originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 02 Jun 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Some people might have chuckled at the resemblance of Gameloft’s Order and Chaos Online to the popular World of Warcraft. It’s actually a near clone of the very popular Blizzard Entertainment title, squeezed down into the iPhone. But it turns out Gameloft will be the one who laughs last. The game has reportedly already brought in a million dollars in revenue, just in its first 20 days of existence.

That’s pretty impressive. I presume that total includes the game’s actual sale price of US$6.99, along with any other in-app purchases made. Of course, that initial revenue will probably be hard to replicate, but there’s definitely a following for this one. That will encourage Gameloft to support it (more on that in a second), and it may even encourage other companies to step up with their own MMO titles for iOS. Including Blizzard eventually? We can only hope.

Speaking of that support, Gameloft has also announced that an update for the game is coming that will add new quests and a few metagame features, like new chat channels and the ability to transfer around servers. Future updates will also bring PvP gameplay and new dungeons to explore, so O&C players can look forward to that.

Gameloft’s Order and Chaos MMO for iOS makes $1M in 20 days originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 02 Jun 2011 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s one of New York’s great indie Mac retailers, made famous by Sex and the City and made successful by thousands of loyal customers… but, if we’re going to be frank about it, it was a little bit cluttered and cramped. That’s why the team at Tekserve spent most of the Memorial Day weekend ripping out the furniture and refreshing the store layout from the (newly sanded) floorboards up.

Store manager Paul Rechsteiner showed me around this week, pointing out the custom product tables (topped with wood recycled from the Coney Island boardwalk), the expanded staging area for repair consultations and the small assortment of non-Apple phones alongside the iPhone (Tekserve is a Verizon reseller now, which allows them to sell the iPhone). All in all, the changes make for a more pleasant shopping experience; there are still a few rough spots to iron out, but considering this was done almost entirely by the store’s staff in just a few days, it’s quite impressive.

Tekserve’s official launch for the new store setup is this Friday, June 3, and they’ll be offering discount specials until July 3 to commemorate the occasion. Check the website for details.

New York’s Tekserve gets major facelift originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 02 Jun 2011 02:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Update 2: Around 2 p.m. ET, we started getting a number of reports that both stores are back down again.

Update: As of this morning (Thursday 6/2) everything seems to be back to normal for both the iOS and Mac App Store updates.

Having trouble updating to the new versions of GarageBand and iMovie for iOS, or seeing the Twitter for Mac update download over and over again in the Mac App Store? You’re not alone; we’ve seen several reports of issues getting apps updated properly, starting earlier today, and it’s hitting our team as well.

No word yet about what might be causing the issues, but hopefully they’re just transient growing pains; we’ll check again in a couple of hours.

iOS and Mac App Store back down originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 02 Jun 2011 00:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lonely Planet has a deal going on in the iBookstore to advertise some of its published offerings there. For a limited time, the Best in Travel 2011 book can be downloaded in iBooks for free. The book ranks the top 10 places to visit around the world this year, featuring special one-time only events and even a travel planner, along with value tips and other fun extras. The download is free until June 14, so feel free to grab it right now in iBooks.

Lonely Planet has other books for sale on Apple’s service, and a quick browse through the top free books in iBooks shows there’s some recipe guides and Apple’s own iPad User Guide to be had right now. I’ve really been using iBooks a lot lately as both an e-reader and a reference app, and while most free e-book lists are dominated by copyright-free classics, hopefully we’ll see some newer titles like this come out and provide some solid free content on the iBookstore.

Lonely Planet’s Best in Travel free on iBookstore originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 02 Jun 2011 00:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple has updated GarageBand for iPad to version 1.0.1. GarageBand 1.0.1 brings AirPlay audio output to send tracks to external speakers wirelessly, Bluetooth compatibility, HDMI output with Apple’s…

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In the last post we saw how to call REST and SOAP web services. The web service reponse can be one of the following:

1. XML.
2. SOAP.
3. JSON.

Parsing XML

Android offers three types of XML parsers:

1. DOM Parser.
2. Pull Parser.
3. SAX Parser.

we’ll demonstrate each using the following xml example:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<person>
    <firstname>Jack</firstname>
    <lastname>smith</lastname>
    <age>28</age>
</person>

which we need to parse to create an object from Person class:

public class Person{
    	public String firstName;
    	public String lastName;
    	public int age;
    }

I recently came across an interesting looking 2D game development platform for iOS and Android devices that utilizes Lua as it’s scripting language.

What I like about this particular platform is that it is open source.  This means that you have the potential to extend the platform as much as you like so if Apple decides to add a new feature that you or your clients want to implement within an app you can extend the SDK and not have to start all over again.

You can sign up to obtain access to the Moai SDK beta here:
http://getmoai.com/get-started/

If you’d like to take a look at the syntax used for programming in the Moai SDK they have placed a couple of tutorials here:
http://getmoai.com/category/blog/moai-basics-series/

Looks like an interesting project, I’m not sure what the final costs will be (or if there will be any), but they have stated that it will be royalty free and some games are already being developed with Moai SDK.

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

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Almost everyone who uses an iOS device ends up discussing apps at one time or another, and app gifting allows your loyal customers to share their favorite apps with their friends.

I found a simple to use open source project library on the previously mentioned Appirater library for inducing app ratings.  What this library does is prompt your customers to gift your app like in this screenshot:

The library is known as Giftkit and just like Appirater the prompt can show up on every update or be triggered when a significant event occurs.  Just drop the library in, add in a few lines of code and you’re all set.

You can find the Github repository with code and instructions here:
https://github.com/runmad/GiftKit

Looks like a very useful project for inducing more app sales.

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

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